Rasalvatore.com/forum/ Round Robin
by Aravan Fox
Summary: Eliza ran to avoid two unruly suitors, but found Destiny nipping at her heels. Its too late to escape her fate, but can she wrestle it into her own hands?
1. Just Getting Away

One day I was bored, so on the http://rasalvatore.com/forum/, i posted a paragraph and invited others to join in. Other authors include BelleBayard, CBS,Pisqid, Riz the Rat, and the ever prolific writer- Sri'Alys. The majority of this is her mad creation ;-) Pisqid (Dave Pontier) and Sri'Alys (Tori L. Corday) have fanfics posted here on the site. This story has obviously been written by AD&D players and if you have played Planescape (either the campaign setting or that Torment game i cant afford) you'll get an extra kick out of the setting.  
****  
  
  
Chapter One  
Just Getting Away  
  
"That's it, that's the final straw," she thought to herself. "I am a liberated woman. I don't have to take this!" Grumbling to herself, she packed her bags in the dark. Hard tack, a few gems, her brother's riding clothes, and some men's trousers. "Me? Marry? That *thing*?? He looks like a... a," she stopped and sat down on the bed, head in her hands, "a dream boat." Liam was a looker too, with those perfect blue eyes and the soft brown hair that her hands seemed to get lost in. And his smile- "No," she reiterated, quickly getting back up to stuff more of her few belongings into the bag. "I am not going to get married. I will not be cowed like so many of the other women I've seen." Still, she paused as she prepared to fasten the bag, what was she to do? The short five minutes it had taken her to pack let her know that she had very little even if she stayed. If she left, what would she do?  
There was only one chance, she had to consider her options. Despite his looks, in fact perhaps because of them, he seemed to consider himself the gods gift to women. For years she'd managed on her own and now he expected her to give up everything and stay at home, cooking, cleaning, and bearing tons of children. With a shudder, the headstrong and fiercely independent woman flung the bag over her shoulder. Never would she submit to that sort of thing. It wasn't that she didn't want love or marriage, just not the variety Liam wanted.   
She stomped off, toward the stables and her horse. At least Baron understood her, if no one else. He whickered at her approach. She reached up to pat his neck, then moved toward her tack. As she saddled him, footsteps crunched in the snow outside. Her fingers flew, tightening the girth and securing her pack to the cantle. *His* shadow darkened the stable door, but she refused to look up.  
Ignoring the shadow she sped off galloping growling away any second thoughts. She made up her mind, their was no turning back. Baron ran swift and smooth, the finest horse of the land some would argue, the woman could feel the wind blow through her hair, the sun shone warmly on her fair face. This was freedom she thought as she began to relax sitting back in the saddle. A call of her name had her tense up.  
"ELIZA!" She felt the blood drain from her face. Not now! There was no time for this now... She clenched her teeth and grumbled to herself as she tugged slightly on Baron's reigns, effectively slowing the horse to an anxious, stomping stop. "Eliza!" The shrill voice called again as a small form made it's way through the grassy field toward her..."Eliza! Where are you going?! You forgot your...your..."  
"Spit it out, Charles!" Eliza snapped irritably as she watched the spindly, ragged teenager approach...his face red from the effort of the long run.  
"You...You forgot ME!"  
"Hardly, but I was trying," Eliza replied in annoyance. Charles looked crestfallen at her harsh words, but still moved to grab hold of the bridle when Eliza started to urge her steed onward once more. "Take me with you!" he cried in a wheedling falsetto. "Pleasssse."  
"NO! Shouldn't you be shoveling the sheds, or catching frogs, or SOMETHING?" Charles gave a noncommital shrug and smiled up at her with those big and brown, puppy-dog eyes of his.   
"Please," he implored her again.  
Eliza shook her head in angry frustration, then decided. "Fine, then, just quite your incessant whining!" She reached down and grasped Charles by the front of his shirt, literally pulling him off his feet and onto the back of her horse. "Just hold on and..." Eliza's stern words were cut short by the sounds of harsh screeching, coming from the skies above. She whipped around in the saddle, shielding her eyes from the light of the sun in an attempt to view the source of the noise, although she had the ominous feeling that she already knew. Her heart sank as her suspicions were confirmed. The foreboding shapes of great, black birds of prey littered the horizon to the west, sweeping down out of the low clouds to glide at treetop level. Armed riders sat astride the beasts, their legs strapped to specialized saddles that allowed for unrestricted movement of their upper bodies. Eliza could see sunlight reflecting off of drawn steel. Charles clutched the back of her riding cloak in terror, urging her to ride. Erik, the sorcerer who also desired to possess her, had come for her, just as he had promised.  
She whipped her head too and fro searching for something, anything. At a good distance she could see the edge of the Darkening Forest. There was no way she could get there before being spotted. The only hope was to get there before being caught. As Eliza put her head down and kicked the horse's flanks, she growled; "Hold on!" Sensing her mistress' urgency, Baron put his own head down and took off like he had been fired from a heavy crossbow.  
Charles let out a yelp and wrapped his arms around Eliza's waist as if his life depended on it--which it probably did. Erik always had been the jealous type. The waifish boy pressed his face into Eliza's back, her wheat colored ringlets blocking his view of the oncoming danger from the sky. Eliza pushed Baron on...the animals' hooves hammering the soft spring ground. The tree line was close...a hundred meters at most....but the dark shadow from above was nearing every second....she snapped the reigns again, her palms moist with fear.  
"DON'T WORRY, WE"LL MAKE IT!" Charles shouted as Baron closed the distance between them and the trees. "ALL FOUR OF US!"  
Eliza looked back at the boy as if he were daft, then posed her query, "Four?" Charles gave her a sheepishly guilty grin then, before nodding a reluctant affirmative. "I brought Stretch with me!" he confided at last, though he was a bit distracted by the flapping of wings closing upon them from behind. Baron stumbled over a rock then, half-hidden by the melting snow, but recovered and continued on again.  
"Who the devil is Stretch?" Eliza called back at the lad, thoroughly befuddled. Charles reached into the pocket of his loose-fitting breeches then, and pulled forth a stark-white snow frog. He showed the creature to Eliza, who turned away in disgust, revolted by the creature. The trees were very close now, but so were the Wind Riders.  
Eliza leaned over Baron's neck, pulling Charles with her. The dark forest's cover crept closer until they managed to duck beneath its canopy. A great blast of wind swirled around the horse's hooves, accompanied by the frustrated screeches of Erik's raptor-hunters. Her heart hammered with the close call, but the most uncomfortable thing remained the strangle hold Charles had around her waist. "You can let me go a bit or you'll find yourself on your own," she threatened as she moved Baron into a trot. "I don't know why I even stopped for you."  
"Aw, Eliza. Wouldn't be fair if you went off on an adventure without me," he complained, his words jerking with the horse's movement.  
"Twit. I'm not going on an adventure, I'm trying to get away from Erik. You think I want to be shackled to someone who wants to control me completely?" She snorted and turned her attention to the faint path through the trees. They couldn't afford to rest until many miles had passed under Baron's feet. She could hear Erik's birds screeches echoing far above them and knew she'd not escape so easily. Instead of seeking shelter with the local folk, she and Charles would have to make do with what they could scavage from the woods. Now, if only Erik would leave his wolves behind... But that, she knew, posited a futile hope.  
Eliza strained to listen for other signs of pursuit behind her. She remembered the dark riders who had waited on the horizon and worried they would follow her into the forest. Baron's heavy breathing sounded harsh in the mist, masking any stealthy sounds that might come behind them.  
"Wha--" Charles began, his voice far too loud for Eliza's taste. She elbowed him hard and growled, "Quiet, fool. Do you want to draw every hunter after us?" He didn't answer in words, merely hugged her tighter again. Eliza urged Baron back onto the trail, pausing occasionally to seek for any sign of the hunters. She knew they must have been followed and feared they'd not shake them until they passed beyond the wood's farthest border. The morning sun's light barely reached them in the thick trees, yet Eliza could sense it's movement into afternoon. Baron's hide bore the traces of the flight, foam flecking his neck where she could see. Regret that she must push him so nagged at her and at the next creek she pulled him up.  
"Why are we stopping?" Charles whispered.  
"We must rest Baron or be afoot the remainder of the way," she told him irritably. Did he remember nothing of creatures? She peered up at the trees' canopy, trying to ascertain if the raptors still flew above, looking for a way in. Fleet shadows passed overhead, indicating Erik had not called off his airborne surveillance. "Come on. Let's walk a bit," she told Charles and waited for his complaint.  
He didn't disappoint her. "But how long must we tramp along like this? Where are we going?" he continued on, his voice still hushed in obvious memory of her earlier caution. They walked on for at least an hour's span, coming to an open glade. Eliza paused before entering it, aware they would become exposed to whatever eyes might be on the lookout for them. Perhaps a longer, but more covered route might be better. Crashing in the underbrush opposite their position took the decision from her. She remounted and pulled Charles up behind her, turned away from the inviting meadow and fled deeper into the forest.  
Behind them, the sound of crashing grew louder and more frantic. Eliza risked a glance back in time to see a group of deer burst from the underbrush and rush across the meadow, apparently startled by some unseen force. She pulled back on the reins and turned Baron aside, positioning her horse behind a large oak tree. Silencing Charles with a stern glance and a wave of her hand, Eliza heard once again the raucous screeching of one of the great birds of prey. The low-flying beast must have terrified the deer, who entered the forest opposite where they had charged out of as a dark shadow appeared on the edge of the meadow grass. Believing that Baron (along with Charles and his frog) was well-hidden from any aerial scouts, Eliza pulled her bow from the saddle and strapped on her quiver. She boosted herself up and grasped one of the lower branches of the oak.  
Strong and agile, Eliza was up into the higher reaches of the tree in no time, positioning herself so that she could take a quick look around and assess the situation. A shadow passed over her face - the rider had circled back around for another view of the meadow. Glancing all around her, Eliza saw that there was no other sign of her pursuers in any direction.  
The bird and its rider were alone. Erik must have sent his men off in every direction to cover more ground. Smirking slightly, Eliza braced herself between the trunk and one of the larger branches. She readied an arrow, angling the bow somewhat sideways to avoid other branches above her head. The rider passed the meadow and turned his mount again, reversing direction for the third time, apparently searching for the source of the noise.  
As they drew closer, Eliza steadied herself, cursing Erik beneath her breath as she let the arrow fly. The shaft whistled through the air, streaking towards her target with pinpoint accuracy. Instinct told the bird that something was amiss, but by then it was too late. Eliza's arrow tore through the sky and buried itself straight into the beast's dark head, piercing its brain and killing it instantly. The rider felt his mount tilt, and knew immediately that it was dead. Quickly unhooking his legs from their straps, the man pulled off whatever heavy items he could from his body, anticipating a rough fall into the trees. He pushed off the back of the bird, kicking out and away as he fell through the treetops and crashed into the forest floor. The giant beast of prey went into a slight spin, shooting across the meadow in its final flight of death, and smashed headfirst into a mass of tree trunks, creating a bloody cloud of green leaves and black feathers. Eliza scrambled back to the forest floor, and sprinted across the meadow in search of the fallen rider.  
He was dead. Eliza had never killed anyone before, and the feeling was not a pleasant one. She looked above for more riders, but the sky was suddenly very calm. All forest sounds had stopped in fear of the unnatural going-ons in the woods. The silence was deafening.  
"We should head back to that clearing," Charles said after a few moments. "It was a nice place for your horse to graze."  
"No," she replied, barely paying attention to the comment. "That will give Erik easier access to us. We are safer in here." There was little conviction in her voice. She did not feel safe at all. She put her bow back on her saddle and walked around her horse to get a good look at the trail ahead.  
"No, you don't understand, we should have gone into that clearing." There was a sudden edge to his voice that seemed very out of place. Eliza turned around to see what was wrong. Charles held a short sword, the shinny metal reflecting sunlight into Charles' face, making his evil smirk look all the more menacing. "Now we are going to have to do it the hard way."  
"What are you talking about?" Eliza tried to chuckle, hoping this was all some kind of ill-conceived joke. "Put that away. We have to get moving."  
"Erik thought you might run away," Charles said slowly, walking toward her. "But he knew you trusted me." Eliza figured out the game quick enough, and she no longer tried to laugh. She glanced at his weapon again and then at hers, still strapped to her saddle. Charles stood between her and the horse. She pulled an arrow from her quiver, but it was hardly an adequate weapon without her bow.  
"If you are going to bring me to Erik, he won't appreciate it if you cut me up."  
Charles laughed. "Oh, wounds can be healed." He then grew suddenly terse. "At least physical wounds can. Do you know what it is like to be rejected by the only person you ever loved? Do you?"  
"Please, Charles," Eliza said backing up slowly. "You are six years younger than me. I helped look after you when your parents were away. I just never saw you that way."  
"How do I look to you now?" his evil grin sent shivers down her spine. "It's payback time." He rushed her.  
Charles ran at Eliza with every ounce of strength his frail form could muster, the short sword held awkwardly in his inexperienced hands. The boy emitted a feral cry as he neared.  
Eliza stood dumbstruck. Charles? Silly, scrawny, loveable Charles? Yet there it was, plain as day...loveable Charles charging her with intent to maim. She would have to desperately re-evaluate her character judgement in the future. "Charles, stop it!" She cried, although she was certain he was not listening. As Charles drew closer, Eliza decided that it was time for action, not words. She unslung her bow, and with all her strength swung the object like a club right at Charles's head. The bow arced at the boy quite gracelessly, barely grazing Charles' head. With the same lack of grace, borne of lanky adolescent limbs rather than the girl's desperation, Charles stumbled past where Eliza had been. Quick thinking, Eliza had used the momentum of the swing to dive towards the corpse of the Wind Rider. She fumbled with the leg sheath on the body, finally managing to pull the knife out of the tight leather case. Eliza jumped to her feet, fearful that the boy would have had ample time to attack her while she had struggled with the knife. Oddly, the boy just stared at her in confusion, sword lowered. They stood off a few seconds, both unsure of what was going on. Then, the evil gleam returned to the boy's eyes.  
"A geas spell?" Eliza wondered, as the boy rushed her again.  
Eliza's back was to her horse now, but she did not have time to turn and grab her sword, instead she met the charge with the dagger. Charles looked momentarily surprised that she would face off with a smaller weapon, and that hesitation allowed Eliza to side-step at the last moment, kicking the youth in the seat of his pants. "Baron, kick, kick!" she called out suddenly. She had taught her horse a few tricks, never thinking they would be used for anything more than showing off to her friends, but as Charles stumbled behind Baron, she was happy she had taken the time to train him. One of the two hoofs stuck Charles in the shoulder. It was only a glancing blow - for if it had been more it could have broken bones - but it numbed his whole arm, causing him to drop his sword and spin to the ground. Eliza winced at the blow, hoping he was not too badly hurt, but Charles did not even seem to notice as he started to get up and crawl to his weapon.  
Eliza walked quickly over and kicked the sword out of his grasp. He tried to rise but his injured shoulder could not support him and fell to his back. She sat on top of him, straddling his waist with her dagger held above him. His smile sent shivers down her spine.  
"Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get you on top of me?" Eliza did not want to hurt him, but her left fist - not the one holding the dagger - lashed out at him on instinct to the lewd comment. Charles' head whiplashed to the side under the blow, and when he looked at her again, there was blood seeping from his lip, but his grin had not changed.  
"Why are you doing this?" she cried. "What did Erik do to you?"  
"Do you even know how powerful he is?" Charles responded. "You can not escape him." They were in the trees, but enough light streamed down between the leaves to let her see the shadows passing over her again. The riders were back. Eliza thought it odd that they had disappeared right when Charles had started his attack and were now back again right after he had failed. She pulled open his vest, ripping off two buttons in the process. She ignored his sick comments of how he liked it rough, and paid more attention to the odd broach pinned to his shirt. She detached the pin from his shirt and the change was immediate.  
"Eliza, where am I?" Charles looked very confused. "What's going on." He tried to move and winced. "And why does my shoulder hurt so much?"  
Eliza got off him and helped him to his feet. "Do you know how to get back to town?" she asked.  
He looked around for a while, recognizing the forest. "Yea. What are we doing out here?"  
"Erik is after me," she replied.  
A dim light went on in his head. He remembered something about Erik coming to him that morning. He had chanted some weird words and then done something to his shirt. Now he was here.  
"He's only after me. You should be able to get safely back to town." Charles nodded, too stunned to do anything else. Eliza was already on her horse before Charles could ask any questions. "I'll be back in a few days," she lied as she kicked Baron into a gallop. In one hand she clutched the reigns, in the other the magical broach. If Erik was linked to it some how, she might be able to use it against him. Only time would tell.  
Eliza hopped on to Baron in a flash and darted off through the woods. There were now three riders in her area and she wondered if she would make it through. The riders had spotted her and were flying low over the trees.  
***** 


	2. Enter Erik, the Sorcerous Suitor

Chapter Two  
Enter Erik, the Sorcerous Suitor  
  
Charles stood still in the quiet, snow-blanketed glade as the sounds of hoof and wing became fainter and fainter with each passing moment. When Eliza and Baron were finally out of sight, Charles despondently put his hands into his pockets, still wishing he could go along. Then he felt something cold and clammy brush against his hand. "Gahhhh...!" he yelped with fright. He turned his pocket inside out, dumping a small blubbery snow frog out into the snow. The boy began breathing again. He picked it up tentatively with both hands. "Hey there, lil' fella, how'd you get in my pocket?" That's when it happened... Stretch made good on his name. The snow frog began to shift and grow in shape and proportion. Charles gaped in awe as the frog transformed before his very eyes... He flung the thing away into the snow as if it had burned him. It grew to nearly 24 hands in height, with powerful-looking tree-trunk arms, eyes black as pitch, and a chilling aura of cold emanating from its pale rubbery skin. A magic-spawned White Slaad crouched before the quavering youth.  
Charles tried to scream... but no sounds came forth. The Slaad leapt forward and slammed a heavy, bone-studded fist into the lad's head, knocking him instantly unconscious. The unholy terror slung the slim boy across its shoulder and loped after the fleeing rider.   
The Slaad hopped through the forest, singing loudly in its own guttural language. "I don't mean to cause ha-a-arm! I just get hun-ger-y!" It crashed through the brush, sending squirrels and other small woodland animals skittering away. "Mmm-mmm--I smell woman-flesh."  
  
Eliza stopped Baron in his tracks, listening to the horrid sounds emanating from the woods. Something was coming this way--something big. She angled off her course and kicked the horse into a run, heedless of the rocks and fallen branches that littered the forest floor. Breathing hard and spurring the steed on with a slap on the flank, Eliza didn't see the ravine loom up until it was too late. Baron tried to skid to a halt but lost his footing and plunged over, sending Eliza hurtling over his head and into the dirt. The horse rolled down the embankment, legs flailing wildly, barely missing the girl's tumbling form.   
After a moment she picked herself up, experimentally moving her limbs. Nothing seemed to be broken. Baron, however, was not so lucky. Eliza could see that he'd broken his foreleg in the fall. Tears welling in her eyes, she knew she had no choice but to leave him, but it pained her to leave the animal to suffer. Before she could decide what to do, an enormous, toad-faced creature came hopping towards her, looming over the edge of the ravine and staring at the fallen girl with its impossibly large, glassy black eyes. Eliza screamed. Charles' eyes flickered open. "Wha--what?" he yelped. Then he started screaming too. The Slaad hopped down and slung Eliza over its shoulder. She was too terrified to notice the brooch glowing with a strange amber light.   
  
Erik stroked his goatee and grinned evilly. "I can taste your fear, my girl," he whispered, fondling a similar object with a secret satisfaction. "And it is delicious." The sorcerer held the brooch up to his lips and kissed it. Thinking his lieutenants had finally snared the girl, he send a telepathic demand to the holder of the other brooch to deliver her to him as soon as possible.   
  
Eliza and Charles had both passed out from fear, but the Slaad heard the call clearly. The monstrous frog-creature hopped happily off, both would-be snacks bouncing over its shoulder.  
The world slowly swam back to Eliza, the horizon bounced as her mind registered where she was and how she got here. Charles was still unconscious, it was no use calling to him. She had to get out of this! She would rather spend eternity in any hell then to go back to that slime ridden suitor of a husband. She fished frantically in her pockets for a weapon, ANY weapon. Her slender hand came across a decent sized gem just slightly smaller then her fist. What the hell she thought, as she slammed it hard into the huge, white frog, a blinding light engulfed the area.  
The Slaad screamed and dropped it's captives, clutching its sensitive eyes. Eliza was quickly on her feet, but Charles wasn't as lucky. He fell face first into a brush pile and nearly got kicked by the blindly stomping Slaad. For an instance Eliza thought of leaving him - then a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her how far Charles had already been dragged, just because of her.  
Cursing, Eliza grabbed Charles shirt collar, tucking him up. The boy was coughing leaves as they ran, the furious Slaad at their heels. It didn't take long for Charles to fall behind, his trembling voice calling Eliza to help. Then he stumbled. To Charles's surprise, The Slaad didn't stop to get him. It simply trampled over. Again, Charles felt leaves filling his mouth as the monster's foot pressed him down. The Slaad reached out for Eliza. She could feel its sickly breath in her neck, hear its laugh. She took the last running steps, knowing that the game was over. Ground fell away under Eliza. The last thing she heard was the frog beast's enraged howl as its prey slipped away from it again.  
  
The Slaad bowled past the two and kept going, the magical brooch still calling to its mind. Singing merrily in a sonorous array of burps and burbles, it tramped through the snow. "Slaad King hun-ger-y! Slaad King hun-ger-y! Squelch! Squelch!" It stomped off in a straight line towards Erik's tower, heedless of the trees and other obstacles in its way, looking for its next meal.  
Eliza pulled Charles up with her and looked at the brooch. It was still glowing now, but with a quiet ambience, reflecting her relief at the narrow escape. Charles had started to cry quietly, though he was doing an admirable job of trying to hide it. "Oh Charles, I'm sorry I was so selfish to take you with me," Eliza said. "I had no idea the forest was such a dangerous place." And now they'd lost Baron--whatever would they do? Eliza took a deep breath and tried to maintain a brave front for the boy's sake. "Do you think you can get back to town on your own?"  
"I--I think so," Charles stuttered. "Take my knife," Eliza said, handing it to him. "And be careful." She bid the boy good-bye as he ran off into the trees, feeling even more miserable than before.  
Completely alone without even a horse for company, she snatched up her bow and set off in the other direction. Soon after, she heard a bird cry from above. Looking up, she saw two of Erik's riders wheeling in the sky above her. Eliza nocked an arrow as the two griffons dived down. Her arrow hit one of the birds, interrupting its flight, but the rider recovered. He brought his mount under control and landed a bit gracelessly a few paces away. The rider of the unwounded griffon swung a man catcher at her. Eliza dove to the side, avoiding the snare, and drew her short sword. The man laughed at her and urged his griffon on. The bird pounced and fell over her like a shadow of death, buffeting her with its wings and trapping her as the man dismounted.  
Eliza stabbed out wildly with her short sword, scoring a gash on the monster's belly, but the griffon shrugged it off. Suddenly, she felt herself being dragged by the feet– the rider had her by the ankles, and the other man had recovered from his crash landing and held a sword to her vulnerable neck.  
"Still feel like fighting?" said the one pressing sword to her throat, sneering at her. He stomped on her hand, breaking fingers and loosening her grip on her sword, which he promptly kicked away. Eliza lay helplessly in the snow, her mind reeling from the pain.  
  
Charles was scrabbling through the woods and staring at the ground; he did not notice the third griffon rider until it was too late. The great bird bore down upon him.  
"Hey! What? No!" The boy yelled as a net descended on him, pinning him so that he could not even reach his knife. "Perhaps _you_ shall ensure the girl's cooperation," said the rider before clubbing him unconscious. 


	3. Enter Liam, the Other Suitor

Chapter Three  
Enter Liam, the Other Suitor  
  
Liam paced back and forth in his house, worrying about Eliza. He'd never meant to drive her away. Never meant to hold her in such a stranglehold that she'd rather flee into danger's clutches than stay. He pounded the window sill and stared out at the gray sky. Somehow, he knew she had fallen into serious trouble. The magelord Erik had frequently made forays into Esterhaven, looking for her. She'd always managed to avoid him until the last year. At that point, Liam had witnessed the confrontations between them and vowed he'd keep her safe from the madman living in the tower. Well, he couldn't just leave her to go off and end up in Erik's power.  
A grim expression crossed his face. If he managed to keep her from such a fate, he'd promise her he'd not try to restrict her as other men did their wives. He loved her, truly loved her, more than any other person in his life. And he knew what she thought of him and for the most part, he had to admit he had lived up to her view of him.  
With an oath, he flung away to make up a pack. Ignoring those who tried to hail him, Liam stalked into the stable and winced at Baron's absence. The vacant stall brought home just how much he missed Eliza and her quirks. He quickly saddled Job, his hunting horse, and set off in the direction he'd seen Eliza take off in.  
Outside the village he picked up another set of tracks. Someone had followed her on foot and she'd taken that someone up on Baron. Liam rolled his eyes. It had to have been Charles. The youngster followed her around like a puppy.  
Liam kicked Job into a canter, following the trail in the snow, then pulled up abruptly. In the distance he could see dark forms circling the forest, then swoop into the trees. Liam's heart sank. He knew those riders came from Erik and it spelled no good for Eliza. He kneed Job again and sped off toward the activity.  
Once he reached the woods, he picked his way through the underbrush, following the broken branches that pointed toward Eliza's path. The sun had began to sink beneath the horizon and the way became too dark to see. Liam began to despair of finding Eliza. And then he found Baron. The poor thing had managed to stand, but from the awkward angle of the horse's right front leg, Liam knew the animal had broken its leg. He drew his crossbow and prepared to put Baron out of his misery.  
As he set the bolt, a strange tingling crawled up his arms. Golden light trickled from the trees to his right and within moments five tall forms emerged from between them.  
"Hold human, you have no need for this action. Allow us to heal this creature," the foremost male told him. Liam backed off, uncertain if he should trust these... these... elves. Usually, these beings avoided any contact with humans like himself and Liam had little liking for those who used magic. As if they sensed his dislike of their kind, the leader, or so Liam believed, nodded at the others, who retreated away into the deepening shadows.  
"Your mistrust is unwarranted, human," the leader said, then turned to the obviously hurting horse. The elf knelt beside Baron, placing his hands over the injured limb and chanting in some strange language. His hands began to glow and before Liam's eyes the awkward angle of the limb straightened until Baron could place his weight fully on it.  
Once Baron's leg had knit, the elf rose laid a hand on the trembling horse's neck. Baron calmed and nuzzled the elf's arm. "I am called Ulendil. My people do not wish to allow Erik access to one as powerful as Eliza. Baron will lead you to her. Though we will not become directly involved in this conflict, I have asked them to aid you in this." Before Liam could reply, the elf... Ulendil, if he remembered correctly, melted back into the forest, leaving Liam staring after them and wondering if he'd been in the woods too long. He shrugged and turned his attention back to the horse he'd been prepared to dispatch.  
"Well, old boy, it looks like you'll be my guide in this." Baron gave him a disgusted look, threw his head up and moved off. Liam cursed under his breath and remounted Job. First, he had a runaway bride, then dealing with the likes of elves, and now he had to contend with a condescending horse. In the deepening gloom, he managed to keep Baron's rump in sight, more through Job's following of the other horse than any talent of Liam's. Still, he didn't know how much longer they could keep going.   
  
Eliza knew these men wouldn't kill her except as a last resort, but that wouldn't stop them from hurting her badly. A third Wind Rider joined the first two, carrying a half- conscious Charles across his saddle.. The rider pulled Charles' hair, laughing as he showed the others his "prize."  
Eliza tensed, wanting to do *something*. Before she could act, however, the sound of hoof beats came from behind her, and a familiar voice rang through the trees.  
"Face your doom, villains!" came the predictably cheesy battle cry as a throwing axe slammed into the sword-wielder's skull, killing him instantly. Another axe took out the second rider.  
"Bully, Bully, BULLY!" Odikin Orecrusher shouted with glee, coming to Eliza's rescue. A short barrel-chested dwarf came caroming onto the scene, mounted on Splay, his short, heavy war pony. He vaulted from his bare-backed charger and hit the ground running, his belt and harness veritably bristling with stout, razor-sharp throwing axes.  
With but a few running strides he'd clambered up a wind-fallen tree-trunk and leapt up behind the mounted Wind Rider. Odie whipped an axe from his belt and brought it down with every ounce of strength the dwarf possessed, stabbing the butt of the axe-handle between the man's shoulder blades. The bird-beast shrieked in outrage and reared up, wings fluttering wildly in agitation, sending the crazed dwarf and Charles down into the mud. The subdued rider slipped off the winged mount's other side, landing in a heap, but the bird paid him no mind; it began cocking and bobbing its head up-and-down in eager anticipation as it began stalking the nervously-whickering war pony.  
Eliza was at a loss. Finally she came to her senses and snatched up the cloven-helmed sword-wielder's blade. She stumbled to her feet again, and tried to catch her breath. By then, Odie was scurrying about, whooping and whirling, jouncing and jumping around like a complete fool. The lass watched in disbelief as the "mad dwarf" started to strut, skip, and caper around her in a circle... spouting out a merry song:   
"Odie likes cheese...! Odie likes bread... !  
Odie wants venison pie, INSTEAD... !" (over-and-over-and-over-again).  
Then he came to an abrupt halt right before Eliza, looked up at her expectantly, and hooted out, "Face your doom, villains!" It was one of the few lines Liam had taught him. The simpleton dwarf took up his merry dance once more, but the stricken scream of The war pony brought him up short once more.   
  
Liam sighed in dismay as Job rounded yet another wall of brush only to see Baron trotting off down another overgrown path. At this rate, Eliza would be an old woman by the time they found her!  
Liam sat bolt upright as he heard familiar clamoring in the distance.. a smile made its way across his face. "Odie!", he yelled, deciding that--if this was a journey he must undertake, he may as well have some company--or at least some entertainment. Liam spurred Job onward--although Baron was cantering in that general direction, anyhow. The two horses headed through a thicket down a hill into a pine grove...   
  
Eliza gasped as she heard hoof beats. The dwarf pony stomped anxiously, which only served to agitate the crazy dwarf standing before her. Had Erik sent yet another entourage to capture her? She pushed to her feet, resolving that it would most certainly NOT be in her best interests to be captured by the sorcerer, for whatever purpose he had in store for her could not possibly be inviting. She picked up her short sword and stood ready, as a horse burst through the pines.  
"Baron!" Eliza could only stand there, shocked to see her horse... her friend she'd been certain would die. He appeared sound and with his arrival, had distracted the raptor from contemplating the crazy dwarf's horse as a meal. A few moments later, more crashing sounded through the underbrush and another horse's head pushed through, revealing a disheveled Liam, sword drawn and an almost as insane a light in his eyes as the madman on the pony. She shook her head, not certain this would prove any better than surrendering to Erik. Before she could call to him, Liam attacked the raptor, beating at its head with his sword until it backed away and sprung into the air. With an angry screech, it flapped away, the backwash of its wings throwing dirt and gravel over those on the ground.  
Baron nuzzled Eliza's arm as she coughed and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes.  
"No need to weep, Eliza. We've time to get away from that beast," Liam began.  
"Fool!" she spat at him. "I'm not weeping. That thing threw up so much grit, it got in my eyes." She turned her shoulder against him and began cooing over Baron. Liam made a disgusted noise, then sighed.  
"Sorry. Anyway, I suggest we not dally here least Erik's minions decide to attack again. I can't guarantee my friend there and I could hold more than one off."  
Eliza grimaced, reluctantly admitting he was right. "Oh, very well. And where do you suggest we go?"  
"Best to head for Maywood. We should be able to reach it by daylight." He peered up at the moonlit sky. "Besides, I understand we have an escort that will assist us."  
Eliza frowned at him and glanced around the dark woods. "Escort?" He didn't answer her except with a smug expression and a shrug. She wanted to growl at him, but instead asked, "So, expert, just which way to Maywood?"  
A blank look crossed his face. "Umm..."  
Before she could blast him for his arrogance and stupidity, a faint glow moved from her right and a whisper echoed in her mind. *To the north, milady. Follow the faerie lights.* And with that, a tiny sparkle appeared beside her and darted off a small distance, bouncing and bobbing in impatience at her lagging behind.  
"Liam?"  
"Remember I told you about the escort?"  
Eliza's frown deepened. "Just who or what did you make a pact with this time?"  
Despite the pale silvery moonlight, she could tell he grew flushed. "I can't tell you right now. Maybe later. I made a promise. Unless they want you to know, I can't say."  
With an irritated sound, Eliza mounted Baron, held her hand out to a very subdued and confused Charles for him to ride behind her, and moved off toward the tiny light in the distance. Behind her, Liam grumbled, but followed her without any protest. Odie climbed aboard his pony and both shambled along behind the others. In the darkness, Eliza allowed herself to grin. She patted Charles hands around her waist, glad whatever terrible geas had gripped him earlier no longer held him in its power. He'd always seemed more a younger brother than anything else. Now, if she could just escape that crazy sorcerer she might make a decent life for herself. That would be if she didn't mind sharing it with a would-be hero, his deranged dwarf side-kick, and one puppy-like youngster who insisted on following her.   
  
Night was a very dark time for Eliza. The moon was bright and bloated in the sky, it laughed at her, mocked her. All her hopes and dreams would never come true. All she wanted to do was sing! Her wish to be a wandering bard was muted in the chaos her life was now. Her environment was hardly harmonious enough get some shut eye. The grumbling of the dwarf was louder then any thunder storm. Even Liam mumbled a couple times. Eliza sighed in frustration trying to sleep where she was in the saddle. Liam made it totally clear that he would see them to Maywood before they would ever stop and camp. Eliza's head slumped down then would spring back up her tired eyes scanning the inky black forest for signs of trouble. But she knew that sleep would eventual catch up to her, no matter how brave she tried to be.  
A shrill cry sounded off in the distance. Eliza's mind was suddenly alert and at full attention. She didn't know how long she had been asleep but those cries she knew as the Wind Riders. Her head quickly surveyed the area and she found something out of place. The magical lights were gone! She looked to her side and saw many dark figures advance on them.  
  
Shidamae stood off at the edge of the elves' encampment, scanning the forest with her night eyes. Beside her, her brother Sansorin was doing the same, his hands clenched around the hilt of his sword. Shidamae took note of his stance and was not reassured. She couldn't explain it rationally, but she sensed a malevolent presence in the forest tonight that even her elven eyes could not see. "Why do you think Ulendil sent us?" she asked softly, still remaining on the alert.  
Sansorin's gaze remained outward, but he arched one brow and responded, "No doubt Ulendil, in his great wisdom, has good reason for guiding this human. It is not our place to question his decision."  
Shidamae smiled despite her nervousness. Sansorin always had the proper response to everything. Proud and reliable, Sansorin would never allow curiosity to get the better of him and cause him to do anything foolish. "The human woman is not a mage, or even a trained warrior," she continued, reasoning aloud. "Perhaps she is one of those rare individuals whose power is a circumstance of birth..." Shidamae's voice trailed off as a shiver coursed up her spine. She drew her sword in a lighting-quick motion and whirled around, sensing a presence at her back. Sansorin had done the same, the two standing on guard facing towards the elven camp.  
Out of the darkness came an elfmaid running on silent feet, her eyes wide and black with fear. So pale was her face that it seemed a ghost had lit through it, glowing in the moonlight with a haunting radiance.  
"Aurilea?" Shidamae whispered, dread draining the strength from her voice.  
"It's Ulendil," sobbed Aurilea. "He was murdered in the midst of the encampment!"  
Sansorin's eyes were set like stones. "Go, Shida. I will remain here." Shidamae nodded and followed Aurilea back to the camp.  
The elves were on guard, weapons drawn, while a small knot was gathered around the base of a mighty oak. The two elves slipped through the crowd and came to the side of the fallen Ulendil. He was lying on the ground at the base of the tree, staring blankly at the faces above him. Amid the weeping, a healer knelt at Ulendil's side, looking him over for the wound that had caused his death. "There are no marks," she said, confusion twisting her fair features. "Not even those of a dart." "How could this happen?"  
Shidamae said finally,"Did _none_ of you see his killer?" She bent down and touched the dead elf's face. It was wide and staring, mouth twisted in horror and anguish. There was no doubt that Ulendil had been killed suddenly and painfully.  
The healer shook her head. "Do not cast blame, young Shidamae. Ulendil was not murdered by any conventional means." Shidamae had reached the same conclusion, but still she could not believe that their leader could be assassinated so cleanly, without his killer leaving any evidence behind. Pacing out into the trees, she began searching for clues. Something caught her eye, and she stopped in her tracks.   
  
Elves. Thank the gods, they were elves; a dozen at the least. Liam relaxed once more, even though the bird's distant cry echoed a second time; the Wind Riders were continuing their relentless search for the young woman. The human moved out to intercept the elves, but they practically ignored him, gazing instead at Eliza with their intense, unfathomable orbs.  
They had reached the Maywood.  
  
The group set up camp in a copse of trees whose branches intertwined, forming a natural windbreak and canopy which looked promising enough to offer shelter against the gales and snowfall. Liam had gathered the components to build a fire and was attempting to bring it to life. The boy and the dwarf were busy tending to the mounts, and Eliza was nearby inspecting her once-injured fingers. At last, the fire blazed up; a glimmer of budding warmth began to spread out over the small, wooded copse.  
"I don't know why you thought you had to bring that odious dwarf along," Eliza complained in irritation of the continuing noise that always seemed to accompany the unpredictable dwarf.  
"I did not," Liam proclaimed his innocence. "You heard his song as well as I; he was `hunting' venison pie." Eliza ignored the bad rhyme. Liam was smiling, as he always did whenever Odie was about. And with Charles thrown into the mix... well, it would be an understatement to say that "true chaos" was brewing within the group. Behind them, they heard Charles take up the title Eliza had just bestowed upon the crazed dwarf, as he began chanting out "Odie the Odious" repeatedly. They both looked up to see what effect those words would have on the dwarf. Indifference, or was it pleasure? Charles and Odie had locked wrists and were spinning exuberantly about chanting the mantra cheerfully. Charles was certainly no help, either, taking the lead in the song as his thin voice trilled out in the night. "He's Odie the Odious...! he sounds so melodious...! he's brash and he's bold...! and woefully toadiless...!" While the dwarf simply chanted out: "Odie-Odie-Odie-Odie..."  
Eliza shook her head in disgust and stomped off in a huff. Liam hurried after her, refusing to let this pass. He caught up to her and put his hand on her shoulder; she flinched in pain and whirled about glaring. The man held his hands up in mute surrender.  
"What is this about?" he asked in his serious voice. "And don't make any excuses concerning the dwarf; whatever it is, it has nothing to do with him. Besides, I would think you might be a bit more grateful for his aid."  
"I am, but..."  
"But...?"  
"I just don't know what to do," she finished softly.  
"Your power is growing... and it scares you, doesn't it?" Liam consoled the young woman. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close. He felt rather than saw her quiet nod of affirmation.  
"It has even grown large enough to attract the notice of the `good' sorcerer." she said, speaking of the elf who had made her broken hand whole again.  
"That is why you have been refusing to use it," Liam stated, knowing it to be the truth. Again only silent acquiescence. They stood there listening to the sounds of the night, until the mood was finally broken by the beginnings of a new song.  
"Odie likes beer...! Odie likes ale...! Odie wants to drink it right from the PAIL!"   
Charles' gurgling laughter chased the droll song's melody. Eliza could almost feel the angry eyes of the elves glaring down at them from the surrounding trees as the boisterous clamor peeled across the glen. But then, as long as the fair folk refused to be a bit more forthcoming concerning the strange circumstances surrounding them all... The exhausted lass didn't really care about `their' wants. The young woman felt a stab of guilt as the unchivalrous thought popped into her head. After all-- they had healed her fingers, or rather, that elven cleric had; what had her name been? Auril? Aurilea? Something like that.  
Liam and Eliza went back to the moderate warmth of the fire and settled down to take their rest and to await whatever the fates had in store for them on the morrow.  
  
The next morning, camp broke early, much to Charles' chagrin, who had to be dragged onto his feet by Odie and dangled headfirst into the stew pot to be woken. This caused a ruckus that only a dozen armed and humorless elves could effectively quell, and added to Eliza's growing discomfort.  
She had started feeling sick shortly after waking, and could not keep her breakfast down. Her short sojourn into the bushes had evoked concerned looks from Liam, but she merely scowled at him and told him she was still stressed from the events of the day before. He was acting like a dutiful husband fussing over a pregnant wife, Eliza thought, not liking the comparison at all. The elves politely made themselves scarce (as only elves can do) until Eliza's coloring had returned to normal and she was laughing at Odie and the boy's ridiculous antics.  
The camp quieted suddenly as an uncommonly tall elven male, slender as a silver birch, stepped out of the trees.  
"I am called Sansorin," he said, his eyes finding each of them in turn and holding their gaze with a look of otherworldly comprehension. "I am the effective leader of this group. As you may know, we have pressing matters to attend to and thus cannot accompany you on your journey. As it is, I can tell you little about why you are important to the People, but I do know that Ulendil's last instructions were to deliver you to the Forest of Andalast. There you will be accepted by Queen Estaria, most highborn Daughter of the People." His dark eyes snapped to Odie, who was sprawled casually on the ground, stuffing grass in his mouth to make his cheeks puff out and making faces at the elven warrior. "Some of you, perhaps," the elf amended coolly.  
"But how will we find the Forest of Andalast?" Eliza asked meekly, enthralled by this strange creature standing before her. Sansorin produced a parchment from under his fine cloak and handed it to her. Eliza unrolled the scroll and found it to be a detailed map of the region, spanning hundreds of miles. The Forest of Andalast was marked as a dark blot somewhere to the west.  
"Take a good look at it, then cast it into the flames," Sansorin told her. "We will try to guide you when we are able." Without another word, he melted into the forest.  
When he had gone, Eliza silently went to Baron and began tacking him. The horse nickered softly as she threw her arms around it and buried her face in the animal's neck. "Baron, I don't know what to do," she whispered. "When we left town, I had no idea where I would go, as long as it was far away. Now I'm supposed to go see the Queen of The Elves. The Queen of the Elves!" She felt a gentle pressure on her back. Liam was standing next to her, stroking her hair. She turned to face him. "Do you think this is insane?" she asked him, laughing shortly. "Why in the world would the elves have an interest in me, of all people?"  
"I don't know the answer to that, Eliza," Liam said. He spoke gently, but to her he seemed distracted by some disturbing thought.  
"What is it?" she asked him.  
"Nothing," Liam replied unconvincingly. "Come on, we'd better go make sure Odie and Charles aren't getting into trouble."   
  
Erik vin Drako opened the heavy door to his summoning chamber with a sharp command and calmly walked to the dais, his boots clicking on the polished stone floor. There the sacrifice had been bound and drugged, as he had instructed his apprentices. "Still awake?" he murmured, bending down to plant a soft kiss on the girl's cheek and brushing her face with his long, straight dark hair. She was wearing a thin white gown of gossamer threads, one that did little for her modesty but nevertheless made her look deliciously innocent. It was really unfortunate that so many rituals required virgin blood, Erik thought salaciously.  
The girl stared at him with empty eyes as he raised a ceremonial dagger and began chanting in a strange tongue. The dagger began to glow, shedding a greenish light. Magical energy began to dance about Erik's fingertips, seeking release. "_Abrek dus vili kharist arys dal!_" he intoned as the spell came to a climax. He plunged the dagger into the girl's heart and drew it out, still beating. She gave a brief spasm and then lay quiet, her life force ebbing away.  
Erik sat on his obsidian throne and ate the heart with a glass of fine Elvish wine, consuming the blood spiced with his alchemical brew. Soon he began to feel the lightheadedness that often accompanied a summoning. Experienced at this sort of work, he fought off his mental inertia and focused on the doors of the spirit realm, which were fast parting in his chamber. A moment later, the magical veil invisible to all but the most skilled practitioners of the Art fell away to reveal an otherworldly creature with the face of a tiger and dressed in fine silks.  
"You requested my presence, Your Maleficence?" said the rakshasa in a bored, sarcastic tone, flicking out a golden pick and expertly cleaning its long nails.  
"You performed your task with the usual excellence, Rajah," Erik said, staring down at the dangerous creature. "The elves will be too busy puzzling over their pathetic leader's death to be of much use to Eliza. It may be some time before her party finds its way to Andalast, giving you ample opportunity for the next phase of your mission."  
The rakshasa narrowed its catlike eyes. "Must I remind you that I am no simple assassin to be ordered about?" the creature said haughtily. "I have worked for greater magelords than you, vin Drako, and do not forget that I possess sorcerous talents even beyond the norm of my kind."  
Erik did not give the malevolent spirit the satisfaction of looking worried. He knew Rajah was protected from the common vulnerabilities of his race and possessed a native resistance to lesser magic, but Erik was no lesser mageling. Still, it would not do to antagonize this powerful and useful creature. "I think you will find it much to your benefit to do what I am about to ask of you," Erik said calmly.  
"And what exactly would that be?" asked the rakshasa, showing a flicker of interest.  
"Capture one of Eliza's party, the boy, perhaps, and deliver him to me when I summon you again. You shall impersonate him and find out everything you can about Eliza. What she knows about herself, what other allies and connections she might have, even her relationship with her companions."  
"The girl is heading for Queen Estaria's court," the rakshasa said disdainfully. "I could not even enter the place."  
"You will make your move to capture Eliza before the companions reach the Forest of Andalast," Erik clarified.  
"And the others?"  
"Kill them," The sorcerer said coldly.  
  
Rajah strolled silently through the forest, the only trace of his passing a small stream of smoke from his pipe. Erik was a fool. The whiskers on Rajah's tiger-like face bristled as he smiled. All of these humans were fools. Erik the great sorcerer–the king of magic--would deliver the prize straight into the hands of the Rakshasas. More specifically, the moron would hand the right to Kingship straight to Rajah himself. Rajah took a long drawl of his pipe and grinned ear to ear, sharp feline teeth shining white. Life was good.  
  
Eliza sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, her knees drawn up to her chest. The last rays of the days golden sunlight faded, the sky changing vermillion to violet and luminous blue...finally passing to dark, black night. Only the brightest stars pierced through the cloudy night sky. Even the moon seemed to hide behind the dark clouds. She sighed softly to herself. How appropriate. Everything else in her life was fading to black--why not the world, as well? She absently let a hand drop to her stomach as she watched her companions chatting (or in Odie's case, shouting) around the fire. It was as if her own body had betrayed her. What horrible punishment could it be? Had she sinned in a past life?  
"Eliza...you want a thigh?"  
Charles's high-pitched voice cut through Eliza's thoughts like a knife. She looked up to see the spindly youth brandishing a piece of roasted rabbit in her direction.  
"No..." she muttered, as she closed her eyes, laying her cheek on her knees.  
"You feeling alright?" Liam asked, noticing Eliza's somber mood. "I'm sure those elves can give you some leaves or something for whatever's bothering you..."  
Eliza didn't answer. It wasn't worth the effort.  
  
The village of Lomm at the edge of the wood was not heavily populated, and even less so than it had been two nights previously. Its inhabitants were stone-faced and suspicious when Sansorin and Shidamae arrived at the wooden gate, begging entrance. They found as their greeting a hastily gathered militia armed with crossbows and pitchforks.  
"Begone, or both of you'll be shot where you stand," said one nervous farmer. The others rallied around him, brandishing their weapons.  
"We mean you no harm," Sansorin said calmly. "Has your fair village come upon trouble?" A toothless old woman threw a rotten apple at him through the gate, which Sansorin dodged with a graceful sidestep.  
"Does five butchered in the night like sheep pass for trouble in your eyes?" she shouted at him.  
Sansorin and Shidamae exchanged looks. It certainly sounded like the particular brand of trouble they were looking for. Shidamae had shown him what she'd found in the brush: the tiniest of darts, almost impossible to spot were it not for the dark liquid on its tip that she had seen gleaming in the moonlight. Looking over Ulendil's body again, they discovered that he did indeed carry a mark on his neck, a tiny dark fleck almost no one would see unless specifically looking for it. Both knew the significance of such a weapon; only the dark elves were known to use the particular poison that had killed Ulendil, or this subtle method of delivery.  
"Please let us in," Shidamae said. "Our own people have suffered as well, and we wish to know what happened."  
The grizzled farmers and loggers stared at the two slender cloaked forms for a moment, then the leader of the group nodded.  
"You have no weapons?" he asked suspiciously, bouncing an axe in his palm.  
"We have none," Sansorin assured him. Of course, there were nearly a dozen elves hidden in strategic positions around them who did. The wooden gate swung open.  
"It was a dark figure," said the old woman in an ominous tone. "As thin as yourselves but with a face as black as coal. Walked into town without a word, swords drawn, and cut down anyone who dared to stand in the way."  
"Said he was looking for a girl," piped up her husband.  
"That's not what he said," argued his wife. "He said he was looking for a place to stay."  
"Yer an addled old crone," returned the husband. "He said plain as day he was looking for a girl."  
The two elves looked at each other and shook their heads. Both knew they had to assume the worst, that the dark elves knew of Eliza and were indeed searching for her. But was it just this one agent, or was there more drow holed up nearby? The assassination of Ulendil seemed to indicate that they wanted to prevent the surface elves' involvement in the matter. Shidamae dared to hope that might mean the drow force was singular or at least very small, and feared to face them openly.  
"Did you see him leave?" Shidamae asked the man.  
"Saw `im walk east out of town, then disappear," said the old man.  
"He went west," his wife argued.  
"He went east!" The man shouted stubbornly. "You wouldn't know which way's west if the setting sun hit you in the arse."  
Shidamae thanked the two for their time, then hastily drew Sansorin away. "We didn't learn much," she said, sighing.  
"Perhaps not," replied her brother, "but if there are drow in this area, we will find them."  
  
Rajah grinned to himself as he watched the elves try to sort out the devilishly laid tracks he'd made while in drow form. He did not stop and gloat, however, for the greater prize dangled before him, just out of his backward-handed grasp. Erik vin Drako could be quite considerate, for a power-mad human. How thoughtful of him to reveal to him the whereabouts of the girl! It was almost too bad vin Drako had made so many other bad dealings with him, and would have to be terminated quite soon. This _almost_ made up the sorcerer's debt to him.  
The rakshasa moved quickly in spirit form. He decided to go ahead with vin Drako's plan to kidnap the sniveling boy. This would throw off the sorcerer's suspicions long enough to exhaust his summoning ability for a few days. Even when he was expecting it, it was difficult for the rakshasa to ignore a powerful magical summons. By the time vin Drako was able to summon him again, Rajah would have the girl in his grasp and have claimed her power as his own.  
  
"Ow!" came a muffled cry from the bushes as Liam and Eliza were setting up camp one evening.  
"Charles, are you alright?" called Eliza.  
Odie got up and charged into the brush. "Face your doom, villains!" yelled the enraged dwarf, running full out and hacking up saplings with his axe. There was a sound of a scuffle, and then the dwarf emerged from the wood with a snake split in half along the edge of his blade. Charles followed behind, hopping on one foot and looking sheepish.  
Eliza sighed in exasperation. "What were you _doing_?" she asked, then thought the better of it.  
"ODIE CHARMS SNAKES!" the dwarf roared, picking the sliced reptile off the end of his axe. Holding it by the tail, he began dangling the thing in his mouth, jerking it to give it a semblance of life. "I saw a snake in the brush," Charles said meekly. "I tried to hit it with a stick, but I hit my foot instead."  
Eliza snorted. She didn't have in the way of patience these days. "I'm going to take a walk," she told them. "And try not to kill yourselves while I'm away."  
She rose and headed off over rocks and through scrub trees, where the forest was giving way to a more broken and barren land. Sometimes at night she could hear wolves howling in the distance. At first the sounds had frightened her, but now she found them strangely comforting. She wished she could run freely like that. What cruel jest had the gods played on her? Eliza was certain she knew the reason why Erik and the elves sought her out. The answer became clearer with each passing day.  
"Eliza!" came the predicable call from behind. Could she not even take a short walk without Liam looking for her?  
Wearily, she turned to face him, seeing a concern in his face so familiar to her she now found it insipid. It was a terrible thought, she knew, but she almost wanted to blurt out the truth right there, just to see his shock.  
"Eliza," Liam said, catching up to her. "I've been worried about you lately. Are you sure you're okay?"  
What would she sacrifice if she fell into his arms right now and started sobbing? It was a tempting thought, but Eliza held herself in check. If she gave in now, Liam would forever see her as weak. "I'm fine, Liam," she said in a flat voice. She took another few steps, composing herself. "I've discovered why I'm being hunted," she remarked.  
Liam grabbed her arm gently and pulled her around to face him. "You have?" he asked.  
Eliza's eyes were cast downward. There was no joy or jubilation in her now as she said to him, "Liam, I'm with child."  
Liam took a step back. Somehow this wasn't entirely a shock to him, but still, hearing the words... And then the implications... "Oh, Eliza," he said, holding her. "Did Erik..."  
"No."  
This caused poor Liam's face to crinkle up in confusion. For a moment he simply stared at her. Then the tears Eliza had been holding back welled in her eyes. "Liam, please believe me, you don't understand..."  
"The Prophecy," Liam whispered hoarsely, sending a jolt of relief and something like happiness through Eliza. He believed in her.  
  
Much later that night, "Charles" felt the summoning pull on his spirit. He got up and stole off into a nearby windswept ravine where the real boy lay still unconscious. After his ordeal of being hit on the head and drugged, the child would be out for some time. The rakshasa picked him up and tugged him along into the magical vortex that transported him to Erik vin Drako's tower.  
After leaving the boy in the madman's hands, Rajah spirit-walked back to the camp and settled into Charles' blankets.  
  
The next day, the broken lands smoothed into lightly forested hills. Eliza and her companions rode onward, and somehow she felt better today after confessing to Liam. The elves would take care of things, Eliza thought. They would know what to do.  
"Oh, look!" she called to Liam as they rode over a ridge and saw a great stone obelisk over on the next hill. "The Standing Stone! It was on my map. We must be getting close!"  
Of course Charles wanted to run ahead and play by the obelisk, so Eliza and Liam consented to stopping there for a short lunch break. It was all the two could do to stop Odie from carving "Odie was here" on the stone, and once the dwarf got the idea into his head, Charles started pestering to do it too.  
"Do not deface that stone!" Eliza said harshly, glaring at both boy and dwarf. And the rakshasa glowered back. The four would reach Andalast before nightfall; now was his chance.  
"Don't look at me like that, young man," Eliza said with mock indignation as Charles squealed and playfully rushed her. If Eliza sensed the danger in the boy's strangely inhuman eyes, it did not register until the last second when the rakshasa fell upon her.  
"Charles!" she said, backpedaling as an inexplicable sense of dread washed over her. The rakshasa moved quickly, grabbing Eliza around the neck. But as its fingers touched her skin, she heard a sizzling sound and the smell of burnt flesh wafted up into her nostrils. Rajah quickly reverted to his natural form as he died, emitting a horrible unearthly wail as the flesh melted off of him. Horrified, Eliza and Liam could only stare as the thing that had been Charles turned into a puddle of goo before their very eyes. Even Odie was silent for once.  
"It seems that blessed crossbow bolts were the least of your problems, my friend," came a chilling voice from behind.  
_And it seems that shape shifting cat-people are the least of mine,_ Eliza thought, turning slowly.  
Erik vin Drako stood leaning against the obelisk, holding a staff in one hand and fingering a wand that was pointing in her general direction. "Come quietly, my dear, and perhaps the others will escape," Erik said to her. "I need no more prisoners to ensure your good behavior."  
Liam and Odie drew their weapons. "You shall never have her," Liam promised, though his words sounded hollow to his own ears. There was something about the sorcerer's presence that made him feel so hopeless.  
"Face your doom, villain," Odie growled, but his voice too lacked conviction.  
Erik loosed a blast of energy from his wand, catching Liam in the chest. He jolted and fell to the ground, shaking all over. Odie charged, yelling a dwarfish curse, but he ran into something invisible and smacked to the ground at the sorcerer's feet. Erik casually planted the butt of his staff on the dwarf's throat and spoke a command word. The staff buzzed to life and delivered an electrical current into the prone dwarf's neck.  
"No!" Eliza screamed, rushing forward. She did not know if Liam and Odie were alive or dead, and in that moment, that was all that mattered. She drew her short sword and swore to gut the bastard, invisible wall or not. To her surprise, the sorcerer allowed her to close in and get her strike. She plunged the sword into Erik's chest with all her strength and fury behind it, skewering him.  
Erik laughed at her and casually plucked the blade out of his chest. The wound was completely closed. Eliza shook her head in disbelief, her expression as pained as if she had been the one to take the wound. The sorcerer uttered another word and chains formed around her wrists.  
"Have you ever traveled magically, my dear?" Erik asked her mockingly, dragging her with him. "No? Well, I suppose there's a first time for everything."  
_There is nothing I can do,_ Eliza thought helplessly. The hopelessness quelled any rebellious thoughts of escape. Nothing...  
"Hold!" came a sudden call, imperious yet at the same time otherworldly. Eliza looked up to see the most beautiful creature she had ever laid eyes on seeming to drift through the trees without ever touching the ground. She was an elf, with lustrous silver hair that hung down to her feet, fair glowing skin and eyes that bored into the soul. Behind her came her silent entourage, almost as splendid as she. Eliza felt a shimmering magical force fall down upon them.  
"I am Queen Estaria, ruler of these lands and of the elven People. Do not bother attempting to teleport away, magelord. I have placed a dimensional anchor upon you."  
"Faerie queen," Erik addressed her contemptuously. "I did not realize you got out any more."  
"Release the girl," the Queen commanded, her voice as light as the wind but as strong as the chains binding Eliza's wrists.  
Erik sneered. "And why should I do that? You will not harm me while I hold valuable goods."  
Queen Estaria narrowed her eyes, then shot a blast of concentrated magical energy over Eliza's head. The force hit Erik full in the face, knocking him off his feet. Eliza's chains fell away from her and began snaking towards the prone sorcerer. "Oh really?" the Queen said icily.  
  
Erik watched the scene from his scrying mirror, muttering curses at the elven bitch as his simulacrum was taken away in chains. Things hadn't progressed quite how he planned, but at least he'd gotten rid of that troublesome Rajah. The sorcerer tapped his chin as he considered the possibilities. He hadn't gotten the girl, but the child, Charles, would lure her out from underneath Queen Estaria's watchful eye. Charles was bound and gagged, curled up in the corner where Erik could keep an eye on him. This time he would serve his purpose.  
Erik turned back to the mirror, the link to his other self allowing him to scry on an area that was otherwise protected from such divinations. Perhaps he could learn something about the elves' defenses before the magic on the simulacrum expired...   
  
Charles was struggling with consciousness. What had happened to him, where was he? He tried to move his arms, but that only made his bindings cut into his flesh. Where was Eliza? He shifted his body around so that he could better view his surroundings. The huge, grey walls mock his thoughts of escape. He almost fell into despair...almost. He noticed a mirror in the distance. There he saw Eliza unharmed, surrounded by elves. He was once again filled with hope. He knew that she would come here to save him...but where was here?  
  
As the elves and the small group traveled to a place where they could talk, Eliza thought about Charles. What had happened to him? Was he dead somewhere? Or alive suffering some horrible torment? Would she ever see him again or would he be lost forever? She drifted off to sleep. No, not sleep. Something more like a vision, a vision she has seen many times before. The images of Charles shifted into that of the prophecy foretold to her many years before. Never before had the images been so clear...  
  
Liam ran to the front of the group as he saw Eliza go down. Elves and Odie alike made way for the Elf Queen. "Don't touch her..." she spoke, her voice like a flute's soft melody, yet commanding and stern nevertheless.  
Liam held steady, every muscle in his body aching to lift Eliza's shaking body into his arms, to quell the violent movements. If even just to hold her head up from the dirt of the path. Eliza lay heaving in the mud, her eyes unnaturally wide, unblinking.   
"What's happening?" he asked through gritted teeth–the question directed at the Queen, although his eyes never faltered from Eliza's prostrate form.  
"It is written. Let it be." The Elf Queen replied, her melodious voice tinged with ice. Not an elf moved, and it seemed for an instant that the only sound in the entire forest was that of Odie's axe clanging against his body as he paced.  
Liam closed his eyes, fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles whitened. These days it was becoming harder and harder to separate friends from enemies. And harder still to follow the former...   
  
Faint whispers surrounded Eliza as she fell through the air. She passed clouds as if on a morning stroll--time seemed to slow for her.  
*change it....* They spoke...a chorus of angels, it seemed.  
*He shall change it....*   
*Oh! Let him come!*  
"Who?" Eliza asked her invisible companions...she spun about, the soft breeze of the slow fall catching her wheat colored locks and wrapping them about her neck.  
*He who shall be...*  
*Power!*  
*Change it....The Krysolis shall...*  
*He shall change it!*  
*He with the power to change it!*  
Eliza smiled serenely...yes...The Krysolis...it was the prophecy! He would change--Eliza blinked--he would change what?   
"What is going on!?!?" she cried, her voice panicked as her mind began to break from the visionary trance--yet her consciousness still remained trapped there...."WHO ARE YOU!?!?! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!??"  
The voices began to laugh, their chorus of chuckles becoming a cacophony of earsplitting noise....  
"LET ME OUT! STOP IT!!!"  
And suddenly--as if all of it had never been--all was silent. 


	4. A Leap of Fate

Chapter Four  
A Leap of Fate  
  
Eliza jumped in her sleep as she awoke from that terrible nightmare. Her head throbbed as she clasped her hands to her temples. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at her wet palms in amazement. A hand quickly flew up as she covered her face from the blaring sunlight infiltrating through the window. Eliza looked around the room feeling a bit disoriented, trying to regain her balance, still shocked at the lifelike feeling of the dream. She felt as if she had not slept in weeks, months perhaps. She sat at the edge of the bed, trying to recover her sense-of-place as a knocking came at her door.  
Eliza took a deep breath to steady herself. "Who is it?" she called out, desperately hoping it was Liam or even Odie. Where were they? And where was she, exactly?  
The door opened to admit a female elf wearing healers' robes. She was silver-haired like most of the fair folk, beautiful and exotic. Eliza suddenly realized how disheveled she must look, and for a moment she inwardly laughed at herself for worrying about such a trivial matter.  
The elf came to her side and stared down at her with eyes that seemed alien and even a bit cold. "You have slept for two days," she said, running a hand over Eliza's forehead. "How do you feel?"  
Eliza tried to sit up, but the elf shook her head disapprovingly, and the girl was too weary to disobey. "I have to go," she muttered. "I have to find Charles..."  
The healer continued to shake her head. "The boy? Do not concern yourself. Your friends have gone to look for him, aided by one of our scouts. If he is alive, Parethiel will find him."  
"I should be with them!" Eliza growled, throwing off her blankets. "Why wasn't I woken earlier?"  
The startled elf allowed Eliza to slip out of bed, but as she was going to the door, the healer uttered a word under her breath. Eliza heard the bolt slide shut and she turned around, incredulous. "I don't think you'll be going anywhere," said the elf.  
"Will I be trapped here like a helpless babe?"  
"What choice have you got?" The elf asked, with a bit of authority.  
"I believe I have the choice to do as freedom demands, or am I being held captive?"  
The elf tilted her head in a quizzical manner, deep, ice blue eyes penetrating Eliza's stare, to a point where Eliza was visibly trembling. She moved forward, coming closer to Eliza, every step making her seem a foot taller and if possible, even more graceful and beautiful. "Why do you fear me, child? Have I not given you shelter and healed your wounds? I am only preventing you from further discomfort. You must understand that you remain a bit...weak. You're strength will and shall replenish soon with my aid." She showed what appeared to be a faint smile. "You *must* extend your rest."  
Eliza relaxed, only enough to calm her shivering knees. "Where am I...?"  
"This place is of no importance. You need not worry, you are safe here. I will be sending my cleric to assist you by sundown. It is imperative that you rest. We shall meet again soon." She walked past Eliza, graceful movements emulating the wind.  
"May I at least know your name?" Eliza asked, stunned by the beauty and the powerful presence of this elusive elf.  
The elf turned to regard her for a moment, and with words that sounded melodic, answered. "Estaria..."   
  
Eliza watched the elf go and waited a few moments, then quietly went to the door. It was unlocked. Surprised, she stepped out into a hallway broken on both sides by arches made of twisting tree trunks. A leafy bower formed the ceiling, but the apartment did not seem exposed in any way. Light filtered in from overhead, skittering over the bright mosaic tiles that lined the floor, and songbirds serenaded her as she walked breathlessly down the passageway.  
The hall opened up into a spacious room the seemed more like a forest glade with marble walls and tiled floors. Trees and terraced gardens sprouted up around a small pool with a waterfall that trickled softly down to the surface like fingers of sparkling light.  
"Perhaps it is wise for the elves to keep me here," Eliza said to herself, sitting down by the pool and breathing in a mist of natural perfumes. "What can I really do to help Liam and Odie, anyway? I'd just get in the way and be a liability if Erik caught us. Besides, it will be good to rest." She looked up into the trees and closed her eyes, at peace. "It's so beautiful..."  
"Yes, so beautiful..." The voice, high-pitched and androgynous, startled Eliza from her reverie. She jumped to her feet and looked around, feeling foolish. "Who's there?" she demanded.  
"I, milady. Behind you," came the mocking call. Eliza whirled around to see a small creature wearing a monocle and a bright ensemble checkered with pockets of various sizes and shapes. "Sinister Dexter Skree, at your service," said the creature with a low bow.  
"I'm...Eliza," Eliza stuttered. "What sort of being are you?"  
"One of the last of a dying race. A gnome, imprisoned here as you are."  
Sinister Dexter adjusted his monocle and eyed her curiously. "What are you in here for, anyway? You get caught in the pants of some handsome elven warrior? The Queen doesn't like half-breeds, you know."  
"No, of course not!" Eliza said sharply. "What did you mean, imprisoned? Is there no way out of the garden?" She had seen other passages spilling off from the main hallway, and thought that one might lead to an exit.  
"There is a way," the gnome said slyly. "But do you not want to hear my tale first? This is such a lovely place for repose."  
Eliza crossed her arms. "I don't believe you do know the way out. Otherwise, you would have already left."  
Dexter chuckled. "As I said, this is a lovely place for repose. There's even a library where I can attend my studies. Who would want to leave it? Things are so dreary and troublesome on the outside. I've been in here for more than fifty years, though I've known the secret of escape for nearly forty."  
Eliza wished she were alone again. This gnome was making her vaguely uncomfortable, though she wasn't sure why. She took a long drink from the pool. The water was soothing. She felt better immediately. "So why _are_ you here?" Eliza asked.  
"I poisoned the Queen's consort and impersonated him." Eliza spit the water out and nearly choked. "Oh, it's not as if he _died_," the gnome went on, chuckling at her reaction until he began to wheeze. "He was just...out of commission for a time."  
"But how did you..."  
"With magic, naturally," replied Sinister Dexter. "I am an illusionist, among other, less reputable things."  
Eliza couldn't think of much that was less reputable than illusionism, but she decided not to ask about it. She also doubted that the creature before her would be able to help her with her current dilemma, but there was no one else to talk to other than the birds (whose sole company she would have preferred). "I don't even know if I should try to escape," she found herself saying. "I want to be with my friends. I know they're walking into terrible danger, and they shouldn't even be involved. I almost think I should just give myself up for their sakes. But...I wish I understood this Prophecy better!"  
"Prophecy?" The gnome looked at her speculatively. He shook his head. "You're not...You are. I heard the elves speaking of you before you even arrived. Of course."  
"What do you mean, `of course'?" Eliza snapped. "What does everyone know about this?"  
"Your daughter is fated to reshape the world in her image. She has no mortal father, does she? Is it any wonder all of the riff-raff have come out of the woodwork to claim her? They all want to mold her after _their_ respective images. Not a well-known prophecy among my people, but then, I am quite learned." Sinister Dexter gave her a smug smile. "You thought it was a boy, didn't you?"  
Eliza stood up. "That's it," she said angrily. "I'm sick of people not telling me things. I'm going to find Liam and Odie, rescue Charles, and then I'm going to raise my daughter as _I_ see fit!"  
She stalked off a few paces, then stopped and turned around. "You never told me the way out of here," she said, eyeing the gnome dangerously.  
"I'll tell you if you take me with you," he said.  
Eliza huffed. "You're a dirty little man."  
"Thank you, milady." Sinister Dexter bowed again. "The prospect of traveling with you is the only thing that would impel me to leave such a beautiful place."  
She almost dismissed the flattering comment when the true meaning of his words suddenly hit her. All she had to do was _want_ to leave! But how? Suddenly she knew it intuitively. The pool...The pool must be a conduit.   
Eliza peered into the water and now saw an endless depth, cold and unyielding. No longer so sure about diving in, she stood at the edge and began to walk back and forth. It's safe here, she thought. Why should I leave? Because you can't bear to be held prisoner, of the elves or anyone else. Eliza plunged into the dark water. A second splash followed behind her.   
She could see nothing. The blackness felt heavy around her as she descended further and further. Just above her she could feel the movement in the water as the gnome struggled as well. Finally, she saw light. The veil of darkness parted, and she felt herself being dragged along faster and faster. She reached out and caught the hand of the gnome. Together they rushed forward impelled by the force of the water, until at once it fell away from them and they were free of it.  
Tumbling out of a chute, they smacked against something hard and lay still. Coughing and rubbing the sting from their eyes, the two finally got a look at their surroundings. They were sitting on a flat rock in the middle of a pool fed by one circular waterfall that completely enclosed them. A thick overhang of branches concealed the sun.  
"It was...actually the mirror," Sinister Dexter sputtered finally.  
"What do you mean?" Eliza coughed. "What mirror?"  
"There's a mirror that takes you out."  
Eliza stared at him, eyes wide with dread. "Then where does this take us?"  
Dexter shrugged. "I guess we'll find out, won't we?"   
  
Charles wriggled and writhed upon the cold stone floor, trying to free his hands from the thin, silken cord binding him hand and foot. He paused for a moment, listening intently. The scuffling of bare feet upon the floor of an adjoining chamber only heightened the sense of foreboding which had settled in the pit of his stomach since regaining consciousness. The boy froze as the echoes of loud cackling resounded from the next chamber. He craned his head around in an attempt to view its source, but couldn't quite manage it; the raucous laughter continued, spattered intermittently with high-pitched, ear-scratching humming. The lad resumed his futile struggling.  
  
Erik vin Drako sat upon his stolen throne, which in turn rested upon the black stone dias set in the far corner of his spacious summoning chamber, methodically drumming his long, pointed fingernails together, creating a light clacking sound as he did so.  
The sorcerer was lost in wicked thoughts of revenge concerning a certain elf lady. Abruptly, he turned to face the struggling lad bound in the opposite corner of the room. Cold, scornful eyes regarded the skinny boy, who froze in place the moment those cruel orbs found his own.  
It couldn't be. This pathetic stripling? Was it actually possible this sad creature was the Lady Carmen's offspring? Even worse, that it was... no, he refused to even consider such a thing, yet it was. The sorcerer's eyes narrowed to mere slits as the rage boiled within him. Erik was truly saddened at the moment by the lady's untimely demise nearly a score of years since; he would have relished enacting the torture and murder this outrage demanded of him. Lady Carmen had hidden the truth from him... and Erik had soon tired of her. In a moment of anger at her willfulness, he had cast her to a fate worse than death.  
For years, Erik had thought that was the end of it, then the sorcerer learned how wrong he had been. That was why he'd wanted the boy as well. The frightened lad just stared up at him expectantly, his eyes a liquid-brown in the brazier's light.  
"GRUBSUCKLE!" vin Drako called out in a commanding voice. A short and pot-bellied, spindly-limbed goblin came skittering out of the adjoining chamber, feet slapping upon the stone floor. He fell to his knees before the sorcerer and bowed his head in deference to him.  
"Yes, oh dark prince of dread?" Grubsuckle addressed his master. "How may I serve you, fell lord?"  
Charles' eyes nearly bulged from their sockets in surprise; he'd never even heard of a well-spoken duckfoot before.  
"Ware your tongue, fool, or I shall feed it to the inhabitants of my menagerie," Erik vin Drako replied to the slave. Grubsuckle seemed to wither in fear at the human's words. The goblin bowed his head once more, all courage fled, waiting for his master to continue. "Escort this prisoner to the dungeons... and lock him within our finest cell," Erik replied with an amused, predatory grin spreading across his features.  
"As you command, oh hideous master," the unusual goblin replied, before grabbing Charles up by his bindings, and dragging him off to the dungeons.  
  
Eliza tried not to laugh as Sinister Dexter Skree bobbed up-and-down in the cold water like a paddling dog, but it was beyond her means. Finally, the strange, twitching creature reached his goal and grabbed hold of the scroll case which had once been slung over his back. He began paddling back to the rock and tried to pull himself up onto it again. A booted foot pushed him away and he was paddling once more.  
"What is the meaning of this?!" the outraged gnome spouted out at her angrily from the water.  
"My thoughts, precisely," Eliza replied. "I'll hear more of this prophecy now, or your race is like to become a bit rarer," she said with a determined chuckle.  
"You wouldn't dare..." Skree began.  
"Just try me," Eliza cut him off. Dexter shrugged then, causing little ripples of water to spread out from him.  
"Alright, but I suggest we find a way to get out of here first. Any suggestions?" The gnome lifted a hand to the woman from the depths of the pool, but Eliza was already shaking her head stubbornly in a negative. "Very well, then," Dexter conceded, at last. "Pull me up."  
Back on the flattened rock, scroll case in hand, Dexter cut the wax ring which sealed his case against the elements. "I happen to have in my possession... " he began tentatively, before continuing, "a copy of the original text concerning 'The Soothsayer's Song,' as the Prophecy was formally titled in the Elder Days by the poorly esteemed, and oft-maligned, 'Simpronius the Simple,' First of the Scribes of Andallon."  
"Dare I ask how you came by such a work?" Eliza inquired, brusquely.  
"I stole it from the Archives in Andalast, of course, and don't ask such foolish questions. I'll be happy to let you see it... for a price, of cour..."  
Eliza's clenched fist dropped Sinister Dexter to the cold, damp stone, where he lay dreaming the blissful dreams of unconsciousness. The young woman retrieved the small scroll case and began rummaging through its contents. At last she came upon a particularly old, yellowed, and cracked parchment; she unrolled it carefully and inspected it cautiously, having heard a few horror stories concerning the misreading of scrolls.  
It was written in a bold, flowing script, in the Old Tongue of Andallon. The haze of her "vision" flitted briefly back to her as she began to read.  
  
These are the words of "Rhadamanthus the Mad" ... renowned and reviled of all the races as -- The Soothsayer, hear them... this is his song:   
***The Soothsayer's Song***   
A child shall come born not of sin   
no simulacrum nor a "true soul" within...   
and yet it shall be for good or for ill   
in time we shall see by the gods' grace and will...   
a harbinger come to herald rebirth   
a beacon to some of infinite worth...   
when HER soul once forsaken is claimed once again   
all the world shall be shaken and harken to HIM...   
The Krysolis shall unhide The "Chosen One"   
The fates shall decide... in a world come undone.  
  
Sinister Dexter Skree slowly regained consciousness. He pushed up from the dampness of the stone to find Eliza staring off into nothingness... a glazed look pasted upon her stony, expressionless face. He pulled out his enchanted monocle and plopped it over his eye out of habit, constantly adjusting and fiddling with it as he considered the entranced woman. 


	5. Concerning Magic

Chapter Five  
Concerning Magic  
  
Charles was chained in darkness. Around him was the foul, pungent smell of the dank and moldy cell. He heard the scurrying and scuttling of what he could only hope was rats. Then he heard something else. It was a steady smacking sound, as if something rubbery was slapping against the stone wall of the next prison cell. A raucous croaking began.  
"Slaad King SO hun-ger-y! Mage-mens is trick-er-y!" The Slaad gargled out in his own native tongue. "Mmm-mmm, I smell man-flesh! Squelch! Squelch!"  
Charles shuddered in revulsion, remembering his last encounter with the horrid, white Slaad.   
  
Finally Eliza stirred from her meditation, turning to stare at him with a strange intensity in her dark eyes. Sinister Dexter backed away from her as far as the rock would allow, unsure of what effect the magical scroll might have on her.  
"It's been within me all along," she was saying, in a voice filled with wonder. "I just never wanted to see it before."  
"Look, I don't know anything more about this. I suggest we try to find some way out of her..." Dexter's words fell on deaf ears. He stopped speaking when he saw Eliza standing on the rock, arms outstretched and eyes closed as if in communion with nature. The roaring water beneath her feet slowly receded until it was no more than a still pool. The waterfall slowed to a trickle, and quiet descended upon them. Sinister Dexter fidgeted nervously with his monocle. He was a minor trickster and practitioner of what he euphemized as "dishonorable combat," but this magical power over nature was completely foreign to him. "I see something in the rock wall," he said, his sharp eyes spotting a darker spot previously hidden by the waterfall, indicating a recess.  
"Come," said Eliza, stepping down into the pool. The water gently lapped around her ankles. They found a narrow fissure in the rock and had to squeeze through it sideways. It opened up after about three feet into utter blackness, but Sinister Dexter produced magical motes of light that danced around them and lit their way.  
By the soft glow, they could see that they were in a rough cave. Even with the lights, it was difficult to navigate, coming frequently to what seemed like a dead end only to find that the passage continued higher up along the wall, each jumble of rocks either a blockage or a hidden opportunity.   
After an hour of climbing over rough stone, Eliza's hands were scraped and bleeding. Sinister Dexter belatedly offered her a pair of gloves that magically sized to fit her hands. As Eliza nodded her thanks and stopped to pull them on, Sinister Dexter sent one of his lights floating up toward the ceiling, looking for alternative passageways.  
"This may lead nowhere," he reasoned. The gnome was tired and sore, and liked dark, wet caves about as much as Eliza.  
"It leads somewhere," Eliza said stubbornly. She was standing still in the darkness, as if listening for something.  
"You don't know that," Sinister Dexter insisted.  
"Yes, I do. Put out your lights for a moment." The gnome grumbled, but reluctantly complied. Immediately they were thrown into pitch blackness--almost. The wall up ahead to their right was still faintly visible. Eliza could see slightly lighter areas where the stones jutted out. They were being lit from above. Sinister Dexter caught on and headed for the lighter area, calling back the magical luminescence to guide him.  
"Just because light can get in doesn't necessarily mean that we can get out," he reminded her.  
"We'll see about that," Eliza retorted. The climbed up along the wall and found a crawlspace higher up. As luck would have it, it opened into a tight compartment that could be crossed by wiggling on their bellies over a large, flat rock. A few more months, and I'd be stuck in here, Eliza thought wryly. She dropped out of the cave first, into a moonlit field of wildflowers. The stars wheeled in the sky, brighter and closer than she had remembered them. The moon, too, looked large and heavy, almost as if she could reach up and touch it. Eliza breathed in the fresh air and turned to see Sinister Dexter tumble out of the cave's opening and squint suspiciously at his surroundings.  
"The stars don't look right," he said immediately. He took out his monocle and put it on again, backwards this time. "Nope," he said. "They still don't look right."  
After a moment, Eliza had to agree with that assessment. She had spent many nights as a child looking up at the stars, and she knew the constellations well. These did not look at all familiar. "We have traveled far," she said simply, and began walking through the field towards a line of trees.  
Sinister Dexter ran after her to keep up. "Then where are we going?"  
Eliza didn't turn around. "I don't know," she admitted, "but I'm not going to stand around all night in a field."  
They reached the trees and emerged into a thick and pungent wood. The trees were larger than any other Eliza had ever seen, though their branches filtered in the moonlight. The musky smell of the wood and moss and earth was unusually strong, but it wasn't an unpleasant odor.  
After a time, they stumbled upon a wide path, a welcome sight for both of them. They had followed the path for about forty minutes when the gnome spotted lights bobbing up ahead.  
"Probably just travelers," Eliza said when he pointed them out. "Maybe they can tell us where we are."  
"At night?" The gnome said suspiciously.  
"_We're_ traveling at night," she reminded him. "Listen, I hear voices." They stopped in their tracks and fell silent. Now they could hear it clearly--far-off shouts, laughing and music, as if a large group of revelers were rambling towards them. "Let's get off the road," Eliza suggested. The gnome didn't have to be told twice.  
They climbed up a hillock overlooking the road and crouched behind a tree, waiting. A few minutes later, the group approached. A mob of strange creatures, some half-human, half-horse, some with a human torso and the legs of a goat, others exotic beauties who for the most part resembled human women, came cavorting down the road. Some were dancing, some were staggering, but they all held torches and sang a drinking round, their words all but indistinguishable by the frequent slip-ups and peals of merry laughter.  
Eliza stood up. "Excuse me!" she called out. Nobody seemed to hear her. "Excuse me!" she shouted again, over the din. The revelers stopped and looked up. "Do you know where The Forest of Andalast is?" she asked.  
A goat-legged man with horns curling out of his wild hair stepped forward. "You are far from the Forest of the Lady," he said. "Will this lovely creature join our revels tonight? We have much food and drink, and entertainment."  
Eliza shook her head. "I'm looking for a group of travelers. A man, a dwarf, and an elf. I don't suppose you've seen them?"  
"I regret that I cannot help you in that matter, fair lady," said the creature. "But if you will not stay, perhaps I can still help you find your way back home."  
"I would be grateful for any assistance," Eliza said sincerely.  
"However, there is a small price you must pay," said the goat-man.  
"Name your price."  
"Your companion, cowering behind that tree."  
Eliza instinctively looked back to where Sinister Dexter was crouched. "I beg your pardon?"  
"Your companion offends our sensibilities," the creature continued. "He has no place in this world, or any other--except perhaps the Bottomless Pit or the smoking rifts of Gehenna."  
Eliza had never heard of Gehenna, but it didn't sound like a nice place to be. Now she was in a quandary--on one hand, she wouldn't mind being rid of the unscrupulous gnome. But he had done nothing to her except help her. How could she repay him by giving him up to these perhaps equally questionable drunkards? And could she even trust their help, once given? "I will not betray my companion, regardless of where you think he deserves to go," she said strongly and clearly. "If you won't help me, I'll find my own way."  
The goat-man smiled at her and handed her a tankard. "Good answer."  
Eliza took the tankard reluctantly, smelling a sweet nectar within. "Keep following the road until you come to the river. There you may have to wait for several days, but a ship bearing the name _Kallisti_ will arrive to guide you home. This nectar shall be your payment to the captain."  
"Thank you," Eliza said.  
"Fare thee well, dear lady. The revelers are becoming restless; we must be moving on." The goat-man winked at her and disappeared into the mob, which immediately took up its song again and staggered on through the woods.  
"You can come out now," she told the gnome sharply. Sinister Dexter emerged from behind the trees, brushing dirt off his coat with an overly dignified air.  
"I must say, you handled them well," he praised her. "Even I wouldn't have been quite sure that satyr's words were a test, at first."  
"Of course I knew it was a test," Eliza lied. "Otherwise, you'd be off to the smoking rifts of Gehenna by now."  
"How fortunate I was to find such a charitable and trustworthy traveling companion," Sinister Dexter grumbled.   
  
Two days later, they came to the banks of a wide, placid river. Along its banks was a large temple filled with columns and caryatids, seemingly abandoned but still intact. Eliza and Dexter found it a comfortable place to wait, and food was in plenty. Though Eliza had lost her bow, they found ample sustenance from the fruit trees that grew along the riverbank.  
Finally, as twilight descended for the second time since their arrival at the temple, they spotted a glint of gold through the trees. Climbing down the steps to the bank, they could clearly see the prow of a ship gliding towards them, making no disturbance in the water. It was almost as if it were floating above it. The prow was golden in color, the moonlight glinting off of it. The galleon approached, making not a sound, and stopped in the water in front of the temple. The word _Kallisti_ was painted prominently on the side. Eliza waved her arms, seeing some of the crew on deck. A skiff was lowered over the side, and a man jumped lightly into it, so gracefully that the little boat hardly rocked at all. Several others dropped into the boat and rowed it to shore.  
Eliza held out the tankard the satyr had given her. "I am Eliza, a traveler from a distant land. I was told that you could help me find my way home."  
The captain, or so Eliza assumed from his fine dress and dignified bearing, took her hand and kissed it. He was slender and wiry, but there was nothing frail about his appearance. His features were vaguely elf-like, but also suggestive of a fox, and his dark burnished skin and wild mane of coppery hair added to that effect. "I am Astesion," he said. "I travel the River Oceanus and its tributaries, trading goods and tales with those I meet along the way. I know every portal, conduit and vortex between here and Hades, and I am sure I can guide you to your homeland, dear lady.  
"However, you and your companion are welcome to remain onboard the _Kallisti_ for as long as you choose." His eyes twinkled as he said, "You may become enchanted by the sights along your journey." He took the tankard from her and took a drought, then handed it back still half-full, his hands brushing hers.  
Eliza followed him into the boat, thinking it would indeed be wonderful to travel the River Oceanus. _I think I may already have become enchanted by the sights along my journey_, she thought guiltily. _And it's not the scenic landscape that's caught my eye_.  
  
The poor boy's nerves were shot. The wretched Slaad wouldn't stop croaking in its horrible tongue. Charles' head hung morosely over his scrawny chest as the tears continued to form upon the rims of his eyelids.  
"Slaad King wanna be fre-e-ee! So let Slaad outta here ple-e-ease! Rip down the bars, oh yes sir-e-ee! And feed on the flesh of little boy-oy-eez!" The croaking was always followed by the banging on bars and stone walls. Charles wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He closed his eyes and tried to bring to mind a happier place and time... a time before the darkness.  
"Mmm-mmm- Youse smell good, man-flesh! Squelch! Squelch!"  
Off in the distance, a heavy door slammed shut. Charles lifted his head in the utter darkness, thinking he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. At last, a flood of orange-yellow light shot through the cage-like bars of the dungeon cell. The lad heard the grunt of a pig and the sound of a cage door opening, followed by the rapid croaking and gulping of the Slaad. The pig set up a frantic squeaking and squealing... which was cut short by the loud sharp snapping and crunching of bone, accompanied by the rattling of chains.  
"Mmm-mmm... " crunch! Crunch! CRUNCH! gulp! Gulp! SQUELCH! The terrible sounds continued to echo throughout the dank dungeon. Charles almost missed the croaking and banging; he heard the cage door slam shut again, and then the goblin was standing before his own cell.  
"Mealtime!" Grubsuckle called out teasingly. The pot-bellied goblin wore an old leather satchel slung over his shoulders and a patchwork of castoff leather clothing. An iron-shod club dangled from a rusty steel ring attached to the creature's worn leather belt. Grubsuckle held a ring of keys in one hand and a lit torch in the other. He set the burning light in an iron sconce upon the wall, inserted one large rusty key into the heavy lock, and turned it until the tumblers gave a loud click. The duckfoot pushed the cage door open and pulled a grimy wooden bowl down out of a small alcove-niche cut into the stone wall. He slid the wooden vessel into Charles' dungeon cell with his dirty foot and regarded the boy.  
Charles gathered what little strength he possessed and rushed out from the wall which anchored the long, heavy chains shackled to his wrists, yelling at the top of his lungs as he charged down upon the goblin. The chains pulled the lad up just short of the cheerfully-grinning creature, jerking Charles to a painful stop. Grubsuckle pushed the human boy backwards, forcing him to sit down hard upon the filthy stone floor. Casually, he reached down to his satchel, unfastened it with his grubby fingers, and dumped the contents into the wooden bowl. More than a dozen plump and white, wriggling stink-grubs churned within the filthy bowl.   
The ugly creature plucked one clinger-on from the pouch, inspected it carefully, and put it to his hideous, blue-black lips. Charles watched as Grubsuckle proved true to his name and bit the fat grub's head off... and sucked out the sweet nectar within. The lad's stomach roiled in disgust as the goblin popped the dilapidated carcass into his eager mouth and chewed it noisily.  
"Ah, yes!" The goblin commented brightly. "The off-white ones are always the tastiest!" The boy gagged reflexively, which caused him to cough and heave. By the time Charles had recovered, Grubsuckle had re-locked the cell door and departed with the torch, leaving the lad in darkness once more, alone with his meal. The crunching in the next cell continued for some time.  
  
Eliza stood at the prow of the _Kallisti_, staring at the river that stretched out like a black ribbon blotted by starlight. As smooth as velvet, the current carried them along. She found it difficult to believe that Sinister Dexter was truly seasick, but whatever had kept the obnoxious gnome below deck for the last two days, Eliza was grateful for it. He had been at odds with the halfling crewman called Sicxlemire the entire time. They had both so exhausted their considerable verbal arsenals that they had finally resorted to calling each other "Shorty." Besides that, the trip had been pleasant so far. All of the crew members were friendly and personable, with the sole exception of the first mate, a strange, cloaked figure named Kosikko-kiro, who had not spoken a word to her since she'd boarded the ship. Sicxlemire had called him a githzerai, and spoke highly of his skill with blades.  
She heard the soft pad of bare feet behind her, and she turned to see Sicxlemire approaching, a loaf of bread in one hand and a flagon in the other. "I'm just having a little snack," he said amiably as he flopped down and untied the bag on his belt. "Care to join me?"  
Eliza shrugged. "I'll have a slice of bread, thanks." The halfling started pulling pastries, cheese, fruit, fully cooked fish marinated in wine sauce, whole turkeys roasting in their juices, and several bottles of spirits out of the bag.  
"Just bread? Really?" Sicxlemire sounded disappointed. "Well, then I guess I'll just have to eat the rest of it all by myself."  
"How do you fit all of that in that little bag?" Eliza asked, incredulous. "And how do you fit it all inside of _you_?" The halfling, despite his gluttony, was not a pound overweight.  
"Oh, well, I actually have two of these bags," Sicxlemire explained. "They're really just like little portals into extra-dimensional space. They do have their limits, though. I couldn't fit all of my stuff into one bag, so I swallowed one of them. It's in my stomach."  
"Are you joking?"  
"No, no," the halfling assured her. "The only problem is, if I want to actually get nutritional value from what I eat, I have to inject it into me." He pulled out one last thing from the bag- a case full of needles and different colored little vials.  
Eliza shuddered. "Have you seen Astesion?" she asked, changing the subject.  
Sicxlemire was too busy stuffing his face to answer immediately. Finally he choked down a turkey leg and responded, "I think he's in his cabin. He likes to write music."  
"Really?" Eliza paused and considered that for a moment. "I've never heard him play anything, or even sing."  
The halfling looked thoughtful. "Well, he doesn't any more... not since the incident. He doesn't do a lot of things he used to do, like cast spells and turn into a pillar of flame. Of course, the ability to turn into a pillar of flame isn't necessarily all the useful when you're on a boat." He began arranging the turkey bones into a rather intricate little model of a pyre, using the skins to represent the flesh of a burning man. "I like boats. Not many of my kind do."  
Eliza hated dragging information out of Sicxlemire; half the time he got distracted by something else and forgot what he was talking about, permanently. Still, who else could she ask? The githzerai? The rest of the crewmen were generous enough, but they were clearly drifters, and Eliza doubted that they knew much. "What do you mean, 'the incident'?" she asked after waiting a sufficient time for the halfling to resume his rambling. "If Astesion doesn't mind you telling me, what kind of creature is he, anyway?"  
"He's a Firre Eladrin."  
"A...what?" Sicxlemire started chowing down on an eclair. "An Eladrin, I think people from your world call them `angels.'" He squeezed some of the filling out of the pastry and slathered it onto the deck, making a smiley face. "I like the cream, but they always put too much in it, you know? I hate that."  
"Come on, you're going to have to do better than that," Eliza chided him. "An angel? He doesn't look like an angel. He doesn't even have wings. Aren't angels supposed to have wings?"  
The halfling laughed uproariously. "Oh, he gave up his divinity a long time ago. Now he's mortal just like the rest of us. Heh heh heh!" Custard flew out of his nose.  
Eliza didn't find it funny at all. She felt a creeping sensation in the pit of her stomach, and though she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to her next question, she had to ask. "Did he do something wrong?"  
"Oh, I don't know. I probably shouldn't talk about that. Wrong? Not according to human standards, I wouldn't say. But you know celestials. Well, maybe you don't. Needless to say, giving up your immortality is highly frowned upon in some circles, no matter what the reason for it is."  
"Well, if he doesn't want you to tell me, then..."  
Eliza's words were interrupted as a jolt shook the ship, spilling the halfling's drink. He dove for the flagon as Eliza was thrown to the deck. She stopped her fall with her hands and crawled over to the rail, hanging on as the ship jolted again. "What's happening?" she yelled as Sicxlemire slid away from her. She had gone boating on the lake before and had once been caught in a storm, but this was not like that. The river was still placid, the wind calm.  
"I don't know!" the halfling shouted back. "But I think we're being tunnel-jacked!" Before Eliza could ask what the hell that meant, Astesion emerged from his quarters to shout orders at his crew, which was scrambling to keep the ship on course as another shock wave sent the _Kallisti_ spinning. Sicxlemire had recovered from the shock of losing his ale and was up the rigging with his spyglass. Astesion crossed the deck, practically dancing across its surface to keep his balance, over to where Eliza still knelt, clutching the rail.  
"Eliza! Are you alright?" He held out his hand to help her up. Perfectly balanced, the strange storm could not displace him, even with Eliza clinging to him.  
"I'm okay," she said shakily. "What's going on?"  
"Recently activated vortices. It could be completely random, but it's entirely possible that someone or something is trying to pull us through a portal into another plane of existence."  
"Is there any way to avoid it?" Eliza asked.  
"We have been avoiding the vortices so far, but they are getting more and more concentrated." His words were illustrated by another severe jolt which Astesion managed to ride out. "If we do find ourselves in a hostile environment, I may need your help. Can you use your power over the elements?"  
"How did you... you want me to help?" There was a surprised note in her voice. Astesion seemed almost flustered.  
"Well, of course it's your choice. If it is too draining, I understand..."  
"No!" Eliza said. "No, I mean, I'm just... not used to being asked for help, that's all." _What a stupid thing to say_, Eliza scolded herself silently.  
"Captain!" came Sicxlemire's call from above. "There's something up ahead--a whirlpool, it looks like!" There was a pause. "You know what? I think it's an astral conduit."  
Then all words were lost as the current pulled them into a roaring vortex of energy. Bright lights danced in their eyes and the ship spun out of control. Time seemed to stop.   
Then--shouts, and steel flashing. Sicxlemire was down on the deck, violently vomiting up the contents of his bag of holding. Astesion was cutting down some strange creature dropping down onto the deck, its yellow face contorted with battle lust. Kosikko-kiro was right beside him, both blades bloodied and shining in the strange silvery light. They and three other crew members formed a circle around her to keep her from harm, falling into a dance of spinning swords.  
Somebody was shouting, "Githyanki! Githyanki!" All around them the forms were dropping onto the deck. The rest of Astesion's crew were trying to fight their way over to him, cutting down one Githyanki only to be faced with two more. Eliza heard the screams of the dying, and looked for Sicxlemire. The halfling was scooting towards her between the legs of the combatants, unnoticed until one githyanki, in an unoccupied moment, looked down and spotted him. Snarling, he raised his sword over the scrambling halfling with a cruel smile.  
Eliza's mouth opened in denial, but no sound came out. Guided by instinct alone, she called forth the power that she knew was hers to command. The githyanki's sword suddenly morphed into the form of a serpent and struck back at it's wielder, biting him in the cheek with glistening fangs. Sicxlemire made it the last few feet and dove into the circle, liberating his eclair onto Eliza's boots.  
The halfling was up in a second. "Sorry about that," he said sheepishly. "I feel better now." He drew his punch daggers and darted into the fray, past one of the crewmen. Eliza saw him hamstring an unsuspecting githyanki warrior and somersault away as a huge sword came arcing down toward his neck. Sicxlemire twisted his body and changed direction, springing over the sword and launching a flurry of blows with his daggers. The dying githyanki stumbled, out of the fight, but another sword came lashing toward the halfling's head. He threw himself under the falling githyanki, taking comfort that his shield had served him well as he felt the corpse take another hit. Then the halfling was moving again, out of sight before his attacker could retract his sword from his fallen ally.  
Astesion and Kosikko-kiro continued to hold their attackers off, but one slipped past another crewman's defenses and sent him sprawling toward Eliza, blood staining the deck from a grievous wound in his side. Instinctively, she bent down to see to the man's wounds, only to look up and see the fine edge of a githyanki sword in line with her face and coming toward her with terrifying speed. Suddenly the blade was intercepted--twice. Astesion and Kosikko had simultaneously parried with their off-hand weapons, and without any conscious thought, it seemed, skewered the githyanki from two sides.  
Still, Eliza couldn't take too much comfort in her companions' display of skill. It would take more than the two of them to guard her from this seemingly never-ending supply of enemies. Of the original three crewmen who had completed the circle of blades, one had been slain, one had been replaced, one was wounded, and the other two were sorely pressed. She was vulnerable.  
Eliza stanched the bleedingcrew man's wounds as best she could and drew forth healing energy from her fingertips, mending the internal injuries first. It was all she could do. He would live, but he would not fight again this day. She picked up his sword, the weight and length of it unfamiliar to her. She didn't plan on rushing into the melee, but she felt braver with it in her hand.  
Suddenly, Eliza was aware of a commotion on deck outside their slowly collapsing defensive circle. There were bodies heaped everywhere, the bloodbath claiming many of Astesion's crew. Four remaining men were fighting back-to-back, desperately trying to push through to get to their captain. Sicxlemire seemed to be everywhere at once, launching devastating attacks and then springing away before his enemies could catch him. But what caught Eliza's attention was another creature that had joined the fight- a monstrous humanoid with a great sword that seemed to dance of its own accord. At first the sight filled her with dread, until she realized the creature was targeting githyanki. Its blade leapt for their enemies' throats as if it had a bloodlust of its own, hacking off heads with the ease of a scythe cutting through tall grass.   
The githyanki began shouting and scrambling away from this new menace. They took up crossbows and floated up into the sky, raining missiles down on the behemoth. The githyanki were excellent shots. Not a single bolt flew off course. Not a single bolt hit its target. "Muahahahaha!" roared the giant, in an incongruously squeaky voice. "You cannot defeat me with common bolts and arrows!"  
"Wizard!" she heard one of the githyanki shout, a cry that was fast taken up by the others. Sinister Dexter, Eliza thought, wondering if he knew what the hell he was doing, suddenly trying out valor at a time like this. Was the vorpal sword just an illusion, too? The decapitated heads on the deck seemed real enough, but she'd heard that illusions could produce real results if one believed in them strongly enough.  
Looking around, Eliza realized that the fighting around her had stopped. Astesion and his crewmen were surrounded, but the githyanki did not press the attack. She stepped up to him and caught his eye. His face was calm, but she sensed a flicker of dread in his eyes. She followed his gaze upwards and saw the ship. It was enormous, floating in a fog of empty space. Dark figures loomed above them at the rail, and slowly the great ship opened its maw to draw the _Kallisti_ toward it, hooked by silver cords.  
"Astral raiders," he whispered to her, and strode forward. "I am the captain of this ship," he called out. "I ask the right to negotiate with your leader."  
The fog parted momentarily around a tall form in the center of the crowd along the githyanki ship's rail. Dressed in ornate armor, a helm covered his face and a silver sword flashed in his hands. "We want your vessel and one of your crew members. There will be no negotiation if the rest of you wish to live."  
Eliza braced herself, waiting for the sentence of death. She told herself rationally that she could not fault Astesion for giving her up, having known her for less than a week. She wouldn't _let_ him harbor her, even if he wanted to.  
But it never came to that. The silver knight continued, "We have no quarrel with your kind, captain. Give us the githzerai and your vessel, and the rest of you will be cut adrift."  
Eliza looked at Kosikko-kiro, who was staring out from underneath his hood with eyes blazing in quiet defiance. "Know that the honor of a githyanki is as worthless as an Abyssal contract," he said to Astesion. "You must be ready." The githzerai stepped forward, drawing a sword. "I will come willingly, but I will not surrender," he said in a tone thick with stubborn resolution. "I challenge your ship's champion to a duel."  
The knight was silent for a moment. "I am my ship's champion," he said, as Kosikko had anticipated. The haughtiness of githyanki knights was legendary among his kind; he could not, with his twisted sense of honor and pride, refuse such a challenge. "I accept."  
"What's he doing?" Eliza whispered to Astesion as Kosikko-kiro agilely walked the silver cord up to the deck of the githyanki ship.  
"Decapitating the enemy force," Astesion whispered back. "Hopefully."  
  
A dozen fair folk gathered around the moonlit pool located atop the rounded hillock. Queen Estaria had sent them back out in search of confirmation as to the identity of Ulendil's assassin, soon after the Chosen One's rescue. Their search had turned up no more clues since the insubstantial rumors of the simple farmer folk of the small village of Lomm, and yet they were long since overdue in reporting back to their queen. The young cleric stepped forward, knelt down before the natural rock cistern which captured the water and formed the pool. She began to intone the hallowed words of the divine spell; it came, at last, to a final crescendo, and Aurilea released her enchantment and gazed into the pool of clouded water. An unnatural calm settled over the site and the elven folk watched in silence as the pool of murky liquid grew crystal-clear. It took on a mirror-like quality, reflecting the light of moon and stars with far more luminescence than before.   
Queen Estaria was fit to be tied. The restless lady paced the span of her sylvanesque atrium in obvious anxiety. It was the third day following the disappearance of her human charge, she to whom all signs pointed as being the prophecy mother, the Chosen One. The lush and beautiful courtyard was centered by a raised stone dais, upon which rested the Greenstone Fountain, The fountain had been lovingly and intricately carved by the hands of the first elves, millennia past, into a myriad of beauteous and ever-changing scenic depiction, from a time when the world was still young. The awe-inspiring fountain was also the Queen's main source of information. For several days now, the font's silence had preyed upon her nerves, and yet she had refused to use the artifact to contact her people afield, fearing she might draw undue attention to them, thereby placing them in danger.  
All-at-once, a hush descended upon the atrium and the elf queen heard the call of her people emanating from the enchanted stone fountain. She moved forward and peered into the clear and blessed waters of the font. At first there was nothing but her own perfect reflection and that of the moon and the stars above... then the watery image swirled and swam out of focus... and then another crystal-clear image took shape within the fountain's shimmering depths. "Aurilea?" the queen breathed in relief. "What news? Have you confirmed the rumors?"  
"No, majesty," the cleric replied, "we have not." Two more images took shape opposite the elven cleric, Shidamae and Sansorin. They looked grave and deeply troubled.  
"We have failed to discover any further evidence which supports the rumors and reports of dark elf activity anywhere in the region, your highness," Sansorin replied grimly.  
"And no raids have taken place upon Lomm, or any other neighboring villages, my queen," the cleric chimed out in a lilting voice.  
"But we are ready to resume our vigil, majesty," Shidamae concluded, "... at your command. Though I must admit, we grow ever more doubtful with each passing day."  
"No," Estaria replied at last. "We have suspected Ulendil's assassin to be the foul sorcerer all along, or perhaps some unknown agent associated with vin Drako. I am convinced that this was but a ruse of the sorcerer's, or... if dark elves truly ventured to the surface, that they have returned once more to their own lightless realm.  
"This search has come to its conclusion for the time being. And other matters are pressing. The woman Eliza has gone, disappeared... and all attempts to locate the Chosen One, thus far, have failed. We suspect she went out through the mirror portal in the gardens, but we cannot be sure, yet that does not account for the fact that we cannot divine her whereabouts.  
"We have been unable to get any information whatsoever from the sorcerer, himself; he is refusing to respond in any way to our interrogations. And so he remains imprisoned.  
"There was also some trouble with my consort-- DeLuirien. It seems he was poisoned by an unknown intruder and rendered helpless by the toxin while at study within the Archives, then gagged and restrained, and hidden away inside a storage closet for some time... despite the fact that many, myself included, recall seeing and speaking with him after he claims to have lost consciousness. He claims to remember none of it.  
"And worse still... the prophecy scroll has disappeared as well. I can only assume that it, too, has something to do with the Chosen One's departure, which may well be no coincidence to the absence of our elusive and mysterious intruder."  
Utter dismay was obvious on the distant trio of fine-featured faces reflected in the scrying pool. They regarded each other in silence for a long moment before returning their gazes to their queen.  
"What is your will, highness?" Shidamae asked at last.  
Queen Estaria gazed back into the determined eyes of her faithful subjects, a warmth rising within her bosom. "You will go to the Hellspire and seek out your pale brother, Parethiel, who guides the Chosen One's companions into imminent danger," the elf queen instructed. "Once found, you will keep close watch over them, aiding them in times of need... and awaiting the return of the Chosen. She is the key... and must be kept safe and out of the clutches of those who serve darkness... vin Drako is not the only one who shall seek out the power she bears. Go now, my brave folk, and know our hearts and hopes travel with you... for the good of our race and all others, go... and may the fates smile down upon you... "  
"As you command, your majesty," a dozen elven voices replied as one. The font swirled again and went cloudy, and the moon and stars returned, reflected brightly from the waters of the Greenstone Fountain.  
Queen Estaria descended the gray stone dias and swept gracefully out of the courtyard, and ascended the polished wooden steps-- set beneath the beautiful, scroll-worked eaves and rafters of the rooftop, which led back into the royal palace.   
  
On board the _Kallisti_, fifteen githyanki warriors encircled Eliza and her companions, except for Kosikko-kiro, on the enemy ship, and Sicxlemire, who had disappeared. Their weapons had been confiscated by their captors, but holding the githyankis' attention was the duel that was about to begin between the silver knight and his hated racial enemy.  
The knight stalked around Kosikko, issuing taunts to drive him into a rage. The githzerai didn't comply. He circled patiently, one blade drawn and ready, until the knight snarled and came forward, silver sword flashing. Kosikko wore no armor, and doubted it would protect him much from that sword, regardless. The strike aimed right at his throat with blinding speed, but the githzerai was a hair quicker. He fell into a crouch as the blade whistled over his head, taking off part of his topknot. Kosikko threw his blade up, sparks flying, driving the silver knight back. The githyanki gave a nod of respect to his opponent, and Kosikko knew he would have been disappointed if the first strike had taken him out. He let the githyanki take the offensive once again, or rather, believe he was doing so, for as the knight came forward again, Kosikko deftly sidestepped into his opponent's original position, forcing him to spin around to parry the githzerai's strike.  
Faster and faster came the combatants' flashing blades, fueled by an age-old hatred that ignited their movements, lending them grace and fury. Around them three githyanki lieutenants watched silently, exchanging spiteful looks with one another, each undoubtedly plotting to gain from the encounter, whatever the outcome.  
"Eliza," Astesion whispered very softly, "do you see that green light swirling around over there?"  
She followed the direction of his gaze and nodded. Out in the astral drift of empty space and the occasional floating chunks of rock, she could see a pool of green light, swirling in the fog like dirty laundry blown off the clothesline on a gusty day.  
"When I signal, can you create a wind and blow us over to it?"  
"I think so," she replied, as one of the githyanki distractedly knocked them both on the heads and told them to be quiet. Eliza waited until their captor was sufficiently engaged in watching the scene on the enemy ship, then whispered, "What about the cords?" The _Kallisti_ had been bound and grappled with thick silver lines to the larger astral vessel, and Eliza had no intention of bringing the githyanki ship with them, even if she could create a wind strong enough to do it.  
"Hanging by threads," Astesion mouthed.  
Eliza's brow furrowed in confusion, until she caught sight of a small dark shape skulking in the shadow of astral ship's railing. It disappeared so quickly Eliza would have thought it a trick of the eye, except for her mental connection to the fact that the halfling had mysteriously disappeared.  
Indeed, even as they spoke, Sicxlemire was weightlessly scooting across the side of the ship, fraying the silver cords until just one strand remained of each. They would hold the _Kallisti_ in place for the present, to be easily severed when the time came.  
Kosikko continued to clash blades with the githyanki knight, both combatants breathing harder now, but neither faltered in their step or showed any sign of yielding. The lieutenants were beginning to get impatient, the githzerai noted in the one corner of his mind that wasn't tightly focused on the battle at hand. Occasionally they would drift away from the scene to issue orders to the crew that had remained on board, still at least two score strong, and return to find the githyanki and githzerai still locked in their struggle for superiority. They'd each come close to slaying the other at least a half-dozen times, saved by a snap of the wrist or a desperate tumble.  
"I noticed you favor the dual-sword style," said the silver knight. He taunted Kosikko, "Is it possible that the mighty warrior lost his other weapon?"  
Kosikko snarled; to a githyanki, losing a weapon was the epitome of disgrace, and neither was it looked upon with favor among his own people. The githzerai's eyes flashed in anger and his sword, so dull and frail compared to the great silver blade, came up in an imperfect parry.  
The knight saw his opponent lose focus and grinned wickedly, reeling back for a blow that shattered Kosikko's blade and sent him rolling across the deck to get some distance between the githyanki and that nasty silver sword. The knight stalked in, no longer in any hurry now that githzerai was unarmed. He kicked the pieces of the broken sword away and sneered, "Pathetic. Not even good enough for a magical blade?"  
Kosikko held his ground, though his shoulders slumped in defeat. The silver sword gleamed in front of his eyes, as inevitable as death. And then, without tearing his eyes from the githyanki's visor, he snapped forward, a shimmering green blade suddenly in his hand. With a movement too quick for the eye to register, Kosikko had drawn his _zerth_ blade from a scabbard hidden by his loose-fitting clothes. Sharpened by the githzerai's own will, it shot forward and sheared through the knight's ornate breastplate as if it were butter.  
"A _zerth_ never fights in anger," Kosikko-kiro said matter-of-factly to the fallen knight as he lay, mute and twitching, on the deck. "Know that it was your own spite which veiled my true intentions." He sheathed his blade, knowing he could retrieve either one of them if it was necessary, and picked up the knight's silver sword.  
In outrage, the three lieutenants charged him, but changed their minds when Kosikko tossed the blade over the side of the vessel. As it floated down into the mist, the ranking githyanki jumped ship to retrieve it, and Kosikko dove off the other side, propelling himself by force of will through astral space.   
  
Whistling a cheerful tune to himself, Sicxlemire sailed through the air, cutting the lines as he flew by them. The _Kallisti_ shuddered and rocked as the last cord was cut and immediately began drifting. The halfling somersaulted onto the deck amidst a crowd of fifteen githyanki who had suddenly taken up arms. Kosikko-kiro bore down on them at the same time, a whirlwind of fury.  
"Quite a show!" Astesion shouted to Kosikko, snatching up the sword of a fallen githyanki to defend himself and Eliza. At his signal, she had begun casting, throwing her arms wide as if to catch the wind itself. The _Kallisti_ began moving, slowly at first, then picking up speed as it was thrown against the color pool that loomed ahead. When the remaining githyanki saw that they were headed straight for a portal, they leapt off the side of the ship, but not before Astesion could grab by the ankles the one who had taken his swords. He swooped down on the fallen warrior, stolen sword slashing his back.  
Then everything was green. Green light bathed the area. All sound was dampened. The wind still drove itself against the ship, rocking it in its uncertain flight. Eliza could see Sinister Dexter, a gnome once more, stumble out from behind a crate where he had hidden at the first sign of trouble. The others were holding on for dear life. And then, suddenly, the ship came to a bumpy stop. A bright light flashed in their eyes, and when they could see again, they were in the middle of a thick forest. The _Kallisti_ hovered a foot off the ground, patient and still. 


	6. Bees, Honey, and Sweetness

Chapter Six  
Bees, Honey, and Sweetness  
  
The trio walked their mounts through the Weeping Wood, ever on the lookout for signs of danger. Odie was muttering to himself loudly, causing the elven scout to turn and glare back at him with those eerie and unfathomable, pale-iris eyes. The elven albino led them ever deeper into the woods, with Liam coming next in line, wishing to stay upwind of the dwarf, whose split, reptilian headband had started to ripen. The unsettled Odie brought up the rear. Two days had passed since they'd left the elves' forest stronghold of Andalast. In that time, they'd crossed the broken lands once more on their way to Erik's tower. Parethiel had led them on into foreboding trees when, at last, they reached the forest's outskirts. Now, the trees were thick about them, emoting a distinctly disheartening and ominous effect upon the group... even the elf felt it. This was no natural forest... and as a result, the troupe had lost what little cheer with which it had started.  
Finally, unable to stand the thickness of the silence which shrouded them, the dwarf hollered out. "Odie hates woods... Odie hates trees... Odie likes honey, but DOESN'T like bees...!" When the dwarf looked to his companions again, a confused expression came over his ruddy features... as the human and elf hunched over their mounts... sobbing in muted laughter. It took them several moments to recover before they could continue onward, and continue they did.  
They came into a small glade of birch, divided by a shallow, rushing brook. Parethiel held up a pale and slender hand, entreating silence from the others, and then dismounted his dappled-gray stallion. The albino elf scanned the terrain, as he resettled the twin, conversely-curved yatagans that were belted at his hips a bit more comfortably. The exotic blades were designed to function with a sickle-like action. On his back was the fabulous quiver that contained his bow, despite the fact that the magnificent weapon was almost twice as long as the quiver in which it was contained. And lastly, the pigment-challenged faerie wore subdued, woodland-colored clothing over a resplendent, elven chain shirt fashioned from dark silver.  
"Dismount," Parethiel instructed, at last, "and lead them across."  
"Are we nearing-- the Hellspire?" Liam asked the elven scout.  
"vin Drako's tower lies half a day's ride in the direction we are bound, on through the forest," the albino replied. At a point halfway across the stream, Parethiel stopped suddenly and fell into a low crouch, eyes alarmed, and hands reaching for his unique blades. The ambush was sprung... and the pixies swarmed over them with their squeaky, peeping war cries sounding in the relative stillness of the glade. A wild, dwarven roar sounded out in the forest, drowning out the buzzing and droning for a moment. "ODIE DOESN'T LIKE BEES!" The dwarf reiterated, loudly.   
  
Astesion joined Eliza, where she leaned heavily on the railing. "Once night comes, the stars will tell us where we are," he told her. Eliza trembled next to him. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the rail tightly. "What's wrong? Was the bloodshed too much for you?"  
He put a concerned hand on her shoulder and its light weight felt like a ton to her. She fell heavily to her knees, her breathing quick and shallow. Her face turned deathly pale.  
Astesion gasped and yelled out for a doctor. Sinister Dexter and Sicxlemire came to her aid as well. "Eliza! Are you alright? Are you injured?" they asked in alarm. "I... I just feel light-headed, that's all," she said weakly.  
"Fainting spell,"Dexter concluded. "Happens when pregnant women don't eat. Low blood sugar."  
"Pregnant?" sputtered Sicxlemire. "When did that happen?" he said, glancing at the eladrin who fretted over the girl.  
"She is nearly three months now." Dexter informed them.  
Astesion stroked Eliza's hair to calm her. "Don't breathe so fast. You'll hyperventilate. Take deep and slow breaths. Now, what have you eaten today?"  
"I managed a little bread. I'm alright, just give me a moment, really, I am okay."  
"Just bread all day? Crazy woman, no wonder you're faint! You need to lay down and eat, right now." Astesion gathered her in his arms and started to get to his feet.  
Eliza protested. "I don't need carried, I'll be alri....." The phrase went unfinished. The sudden vertigo of being lifted had made her faint dead away.   
  
The fairy-folk swarmed out of their ambush positions and bore down on the intruders. Tweedle, the pixie warlord, led the charge; sworn into the service of Her Majesty, the Queen, it was his "duty" to deal with this new and unexpected threat. Tiny swords at the ready, the invisible host descended upon the trio at the sounding of their war-leader's high-pitched, signaling whistle. His lieutenants-- the Lady Dee and young Master Dum, leaped forward into battle, leading their respective contingents of battle-fevered pixies, the latter of the two hop-skipping along the ground, as he was far too rotund to attain true flight, no matter how fast and furious he fluttered those gossamer wings of his. Only the buzzing and droning of their rapidly-moving wings heralded the onslaught of their strike.   
Liam and Odie were swinging sword and axe desperately, in an attempt to fend off their unseen attackers, but were having very little success. Tiny cuts opened up on their skin, sending them into a panic.  
The elven albino reacted a bit differently. Parethiel straightened out of his crouch, bent swords in hand. He raised them above his head and turned them a quarter-turn towards each other, presenting the flats of his blades to his aggressors. The curved yatagans waved intermittently back-and-forth over the elf's head as he closed his eyes and fell into a meditative trance. The elven scout began to sway, bob, and weave with a smooth and fluid grace, focusing his concentration upon what his ears told him. The flat surface of one blade flashed forward, snapping in at something heard, but not seen. A stunned pixie warrior bounced to the ground. Parethiel spun and whirled in a frightening and deadly dance of graceful precision, knocking each unseen fairy who dared cross the perimeter of his reach... out of thin air. The "blade dancer's" momentum continued to build.  
Odie watched the elf's dance for a moment, then snorted and threw down his axe. He fumbled with his nearby pony's saddlebags, taking a dozen painful stings in the process, until he found what he was looking for--a jar of extra-sticky sweet honey. The dwarf opened the lid, stuck one finger in the jar and licked it clean, while flinging the rest out in a wide arc. Honey stuck to gossamer wings, sending the pixies into a shrieking fury. Two of those attacking the dwarf got stuck together and fell in a heap when one tried to fly upwards and the other dove to the side. Odie roared happily and booted the prone creatures past a stunned Liam, where they smacked into a nearby tree and slumped motionless to the ground. "He's Odie the fierce! He's hardy and hale! He likes to eat honey And make pixies SAIL!" The dwarf grabbed another jar of honey and double-fisted them, throwing honey everywhere while he danced about, kicking and flailing. A fair amount of it landed on Liam and Parethiel, who seemed oblivious to the dwarf's antics.  
The elf finished his dance in the center of a perfect star-shaped pattern of fallen little fey creatures, two bodies deep. Odie's kills were scattered everywhere, some dangling from tree limbs, others tangled together, sweet and extra-sticky in their death throes. Liam could not claim any casualties for himself.  
Odie had retrieved one of the little things by skewering it on his axe and began munching on its delicate, honey-coated thigh. Parethiel snatched the weapon away and disgustedly disengaged it from the creature's body. "But Odie _likes_ pixies," the dwarf sulked.  
"You will not eat the dead!" the elf said, red eyes flashing.  
Odie shrugged and went over to Parethiel's pixie pile, which was just now beginning to stir, and snatched one groaning little faerie out by the hair, eyeing it appraisingly. A silent Parethiel strode up behind him, and suddenly Odie felt the tip of a sword at his back. "Odie won't eat! Promise! Odie LIKES pixies!" The dwarf dropped the creature and held his stubby hands out wide.  
Parethiel ignored him and began gathering up the groggy pixies, taking their tiny weapons and packing the little people into a saddlebag. He fastened it so that their heads were free, but their movement was restricted. Liam watched Parethiel curiously, not understanding why these little faerie creatures, cousins of the elves as far as he could tell, had attacked them. When the albino turned around again, Liam saw worry lines etched upon his pale features.  
"We will question them, but we cannot let them go," Parethiel said firmly. "They answer to him, as does every living creature in this abomination of a forest, I suspect."  
"Not Odie," Odie put in, licking out the insides of his empty honey jars. He noisily smacked his lips.  
"Thank the Seldarine for that," Parethiel sarcastically replied.  
  
Eliza awoke to a familiar sensation. She groaned to herself as she crawled to the edge of the bed. "Erg, why do pregnant women have to pee so much? It isn't as if the baby is big enough to push on my bladder yet!" As soon as her feet hit the floor, she groaned again. "And nausea, what is the point of that?" She pulled herself to her feet and, eyes gritty with sleep, stumbled to the pot.  
Relieved and feeling much better, Eliza slipped back into bed. Outside the port window, rain pattered a soothing rhythm. Lightening flashed across the beautifully crafted musical instruments that had been carefully hung on the wall. Thunder shook the crystals on the lamp, making them chime sweetly. Eliza closed her eyes, nuzzling the soft satin pillow.  
As sleep beckoned to her, something niggled at her tired mind. She pulled the goose-down blanket up to her chin, trying to push the annoying sensation out of her head. Then it hit her.  
She bolted upright. "My room doesn't have a window..." From the satin bed sheets to the instruments to the man's shirt she wore, none of this was right. Right on cue, a very soaked Captain Astesion entered the chamber.  
"Ah, Eliza! I trust you had a nice nap?" he asked, throwing his dripping cloak onto a coat tree. The downpour had flattened the copper shock of hair into dark auburn curls around his pointed elven ears and eyes. The wide smile fell when he saw the look on her face. "What's wrong?"  
"What am I doing in your shirt and in your bed?" she asked accusingly.  
Astesion blinked and then laughed out loud. "Ah, Eliza! My private chamber is under the poop deck, that is, the raised part on the back of the ship. That way, if I am needed quickly on the deck, all I have to do is exit my room and I am there. When you fainted, it was easier to bring you here than carry you downstairs."  
"Oh."  
He shook his head in amusement. As Eliza gathered her thoughts, he kicked off his boots and began to take off his shirt. "What are you doing?" Eliza exclaimed, aghast.  
"Changing out of these wet clothes." She stared at him blankly. "Oh, come now! It isn't as if you have never seen a naked man before!" Astesion crossed his arms and glared; after all, this was his room!  
"Well, I haven't!"  
"So then, you're telling me you never saw the baby's daddy naked?"  
"No, I didn't. I mean, there is no daddy. I mean, it isn't like that! Dammit, Captain. You know nothing and assume too much!"  
Shocked, Astesion sank into the chair at his desk. "Well, huh... Why don't you tell me what it's like, then?"  
With a sigh, Eliza did. She told him how she ran away from Liam and Erik, the chase in the woods, Charles, Odie, and the elves. She told him about meeting Dexter, the pool, and the cave leading to this land. Finally, she told him of the prophecy in the scroll.  
Astesion absorbed all this quietly. After a long moment of silence, he said, "And here I thought your elemental powers were all hedge-witchery. Now I find my ship blessed with the most precious of cargos. The Chosen, here!" He sighed in confusion. "And both the elves and vin Drako want to control it's fate... this is serious, very serious indeed."  
His brow creased with worry. Suddenly, he smiled. "I've turned into a prune while listening to you! I need to finish getting changed into something dry. Unless you want an introduction to male anatomy, I suggest you turn your head."  
Eliza blushed furiously and covered her eyes. She could hear the soft sounds of clothes being removed and dropped to the floor. After a few moments, curiosity got the better of her. His back was to her as he stood in the buff, looking for pj's in a chest of drawers. _Not bad,_ she thought to herself. _A bit on the skinny side, like an elf, but at least he has a bit of muscle mass._  
"Eliza! What *ever* are you staring at?"  
With a start, she realized that he was watching her in a small mirror on top of the chest. "I... I was looking for wings, " she stuttered guiltily.  
"Wings? That's the first time I have heard that excuse." The eyes in the mirror mocked her. Since it was to late to pretend innocence and hide her face, Eliza focused on the eyes and said nothing. He occasionally caught her gaze in the reflection as he pulled on his night clothes. A rough rubbing with a towel had his hair back to its full and tousled state. Once, as he opened his eyes wide with feigned surprise to find her still watching him, she realized the obvious physical feature that separated the Eladrin races from the Elves. His eyes were the deep blood red of wine, from corner to corner, no whites.  
"Your eyes! They are like rubies!" she gasped.  
Done dressing, he turned to her with a wide grin. "Why, thank you!" Astesion opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a bag of plenty. "It's about dinnertime, let's eat,"he said. Eliza groaned. "My dear, you need to feed the baby, if nothing else. Have you been having cravings? Pickles, ice cream, dirt?" Eliza wrinkled her nose at the 'dirt' comment.  
"Actually, I've been wanting a spinach salad, with sliced eggs, bacon bits, and an olive oil vinaigrette on top". Just the thought sparked her appetite.  
"Sounds wonderful." And out of the bag came two large salads, each large enough to feed a family of rabbits, and complete with silverware. Astesion climbed into the bed next to her, pausing at the look she gave him. "What now, dear? Oh, I see. You stare at my bare bottom and compliment my eyes, but then freeze when I get into bed with you? Eliza, it isn't as if I can get you pregnant, right?" He winked slyly at her. "Besides, I couldn't... I wouldn't... but I should have made *you* provide dinner after you have been hitting on me!"  
Eliza began to sputter, trying to come up with a retort, until Astesion distracted her by pushing a salad into her hands. She dug in, ravenous. Privately, she marveled over the amount energy her tiny baby required of her. Between bites, Astesion questioned her about the nature of her magic and the details of her journey. He seemed particularly curious about Erik vin Drako.  
Later, dinner done and dishes tucked back into the bag, they made small talk. Astesion explained the difference between Planers and Primers. He told her how all the Planes circle the Spire, an infinitely tall mountain in the center of all things. He described it as a wagon wheel with each spoke being a different world. Planewalkers, like himself, can travel between them through Astral rips called portals. Eliza pondered the concept a while and then made him promise to explain it again sometime when she was more awake.  
Indeed, it was getting late. The lamp oil was burning low and outside the window, the dying storm wasn't completely responsible for the dark sky.  
"I should get to my room," Eliza sighed sleepily.  
"Don't be foolish. You would have to go out in the weather. You can sleep here tonight."  
She thought about it and decided Astesion was in the 'harmless' category of men. She sighed again and stretched out on her back, aware that he was lying on his side next to her, watching her.  
"May I touch your belly," he asked out of the blue.  
"Sure, but it's still flat," she responded, taken off guard by the idea that people will be wanting to feel her baby kicking. She startled when he hiked up her shirt to lay his hand on her bare belly. "Eliza, why do you jump? Who do you think changed you out of your dirty clothes and into my shirt? By the way, cute flowers embroidered on your panties," he teased mercilessly. "Whatever are you blushing about? It's just cloth."  
"It's the lack... I...I wasn't wearing a bra!"  
"I assume it was getting uncomfortable as your body prepares to nurse. And, dear Eliza, I was too busy struggling to your dead weight into the shirt before the doctor got here to ogle you. Sorry not to fulfill your exhibitionist fantasy."  
He grinned mischievously, and she giggled in spite of her embarrassment. "No one warned me of your sense of humor."  
"Really? Maybe because I don't have one except around you. I can't help but tease you." Eliza didn't know what to say to that, so she stayed silent. Astesion rubbed her belly a little. "Such an important person under my hand. Would you like to know the baby's sex?"  
She already knew, but was curious how the celestial intended to divine it. "How do you intend to find out?" Astesion looked split on something for a second and then, removing his hand from where it had been comfortably resting, pulled out a long, thin chain from his pajama top. On the necklace's length hung a slender golden ring. The low lamp light glistened across the runes diamond-etched into the satin finished surface. "If I hold this ring over your belly, it will turn one way for a girl and the other for a boy."  
Eliza scoffed. "An old wife's tale. And the Prophecy says it's a girl. I was hoping you would use magic." She rolled away, her back to him. In her head, her thoughts tumbled over each other. Old wife's tale. Wife. Husband. No husband. No one. A baby. No experience with babies. Being chased. Can't protect baby. Instinct say protect baby. Die to protect baby. Want to die. Want to stop running. Want to not care. Must care for baby. Must. Can't. Can't do it. Must do it. Or die. Prophecy. Can't die. Baby must live. Raise baby to be good. Failure is death to all. Must succeed. Too tired. No rest. No choice. Must do it. Alone.  
"Eliza? Why are you crying, sweetness?" He hesitantly reached out to stroke her honey curls.  
"I can't do it! The Fates are asking too much! I'm too young. It's not fair; I can't do alone! I wanted an adventure, but this is just too much! I can't, I just can't..." The rest was lost to sobbing in her pillow.  
"Oh, Eliza, Eliza, Eliza..." Astesion pulled her into his arms. She came with little resistance, burrowing her face in his chest. "Cry, sweetheart, go ahead and get it all out." And she did, her first real emotional release since this all began. She cried out her fears and worries. She cried out the loneliness and misery. She cried and cried until all she had left was hiccups and weariness.  
It was then Astesion began to speak softly in the soothing, melodic voice the Firre eladrin race is known for. "Eliza, I am an old man. I have experience with The Powers That Be. They never deal mortals a bad hand. It's only a matter of how you use what gifts you are given. And although sometimes it seems everything is stacked against you, it is only a small trial to prepare you for a true challenge. I can see this now, with ever perfect hind sight. Oh Eliza, surely you know of what glory I had once known. That's all gone now, willingly given up for a task I knew was worth it... There was only a very small chance of success..."  
Astesion's voice cracked with emotion. He sighed and then continued clearly once more. "I was bitter, as you are. I thought that They had taken too much from me, but now I see... I am here, at the right place at the right time, to help a very important person. My ship and her captain are now your's to command, as I am sure the Fates intended it to be.  
"As for raising your child alone, this is no great unmanageable task. Throughout time, by chance or choice, women have raised their children alone. And this isn't to say that you won't meet someone willing to help you, whether they be friend or lover. Do you not have friends who even now challenge vin Drako? He is a very dangerous and powerful man, Eliza. Even knowing that, they face him for Charles and for you, so you can have your child in safety. And you have me, my dear. I don't understand why, but I would fly to the Abyss again to protect you. Your blood sings out to me, and I can only obey it's call.  
"But I have said too much... Perhaps we should sleep now," he whispered. "Sleep soundly, for though fallen I may be, you sleep in the arms of an angel tonight. No harm can come to you."  
An exhausted Eliza turned her back to him once more, but this time she wrapped the eladrin's arm around her waist. He slipped the other under her head and drew her close. Eliza closed her eyes, feeling safe for the first time in months. Behind her, Astesion was already beginning to breathe evenly, content to have her soft, warm body in his embrace. And thus they fell asleep, no longer haunted by the common specters that visited them. She dreamed of pink baby dresses rather than of running in black forests, and he dreamed of long ago days of song and joy, instead of those final days of his fall into chaos and hell.  
And thus they slept, spooned together and as innocently as children.   
***** 


	7. Into Darker Days

Chapter Seven  
Into Darker Days  
  
Charles did not know how long he had been left in the dark. He could not gauge the time by the incessant rattling in the next cell, nor by the goblin jailer's infrequent appearances. Only the pains in his stomach, the weakness of his limbs, and the cloudiness of his addled brain testified to the time he had served. He would have died of dehydration, but the ceiling leaked. Sometimes the liquid that drooled down the walls was so foul-smelling, Charles was wracked by dry heaves and had to bury his face in dirty straw. If he was lucky, it was the fresh blood of some unfortunate torture victim. His body was covered with weeping, festering sores. He did not even have the strength to cry.  
Charles was dimly aware of Grubsuckle's shuffling footsteps in the corridor and the light of a torch. Once he had welcomed the light, but now it just pained his eyes. He did not resist as the goblin hauled him up by the collar and dragged him through an immeasurable labyrinth of corridors. His bare feet scraped against stone as he was pulled roughly up winding staircases. The thought crossed his mind that he should take note of his surroundings, but it was quickly pushed back into the haze of delirium.  
After a time, he found himself sprawled face down on a smoothly polished black floor. The stones felt cool against his cheek. He almost passed out, but he felt himself being prodded in the back. Charles looked up, straining his neck to see the face of his tormentor--the nefarious sorcerer vin Drako, resplendent in his dark robes.  
"Did I not instruct you to give him food and drink?" he heard the magelord say.  
"Y-yes, my liege, O Dreaded Master of Unspeakable Horrors," the duckfoot stuttered. "I d-did as you commanded, fell lord."  
"He cannot even stand on his own. Did he not approve of your choice of cuisine?" Charles heard the crack of a whip and instinctively flinched, but it was Grubsuckle who cried out in pain.  
"O, Most Loathsome Subjugator of Souls! Wicked Prince of Ignominy! Punish me, for I have made a most grievous error! I shall not fail you again!" Crack! Crack! Crack!  
"See that you don't. The next prisoner you retrieve for me had better not be half in the grave already. That is _my_ job, and if you presume to do it for me again, I will hang you by your eyelids with fishhooks."  
"I deserve every punishment you choose to mete out, Your Maleficence," whined the goblin.  
"As it should be. Now, get out of my sight, slave!"  
As the goblin shuffled away, Charles heard the mage pacing towards him, his boots clicking on the hard floor. He began to whimper softly. The footsteps stopped in front of him. Then his head was jerked back and a flask was poured down his throat.  
Charles coughed and sputtered. The liquid burned his parched lips and set his gut on fire with agony. It quickly passed, though, and he suddenly felt better. His sores were no longer oozing pus. After a moment of dizziness, he could sit up on his own and see vin Drako with unclouded vision. His features were cruel and sharp. His eyes were black pits of unfathomable malice. When Charles looked into those cold, sinister orbs, he began to believe that demons truly did exist.  
vin Drako pushed him back to the floor with his staff and stood up. The sorcerer held out one finger and spoke an arcane word, shocking Charles with a spark of electricity. The boy tried to curl up into a ball, but vin Drako continued jolting him, sending him into a quivering heap. Some other unseen force continued to knock him around, until vin Drako finally tired of his game and left him twitching on the floor.  
"The girl has gone beyond the range of my scrying ability," the sorcerer said frankly, stepping over to the boy's prone form.  
Eliza! She must be safe! Charles thought as he felt the staff pressing into his back again.  
"Safe?" vin Drako chuckled. "Not quite. I have other ways of gaining information, foolish boy. She is in peril even as we speak."  
Charles did not respond. He didn't have to.  
"No, there is nothing I particularly want from you this day. You failed me the last time I entrusted you with an important assignment. Why should I trust you to do my bidding this time, when all you have shown is stubbornness and ineptitude?"  
Charles felt the pressure lifted from his back. "Khalicia!" he heard the sorcerer call out. A door opened and the boy glanced up to see a horrid looking woman shuffling toward them. Wrapped in rags, her flesh crawled with maggots and was falling off her bones, her eyes dangled from their sockets, and greenish-brown ichor oozed from her mouth. "My first wife," vin Drako explained. "Charming, isn't she? Almost as beautiful as the day she died." He turned to the zombie. "Khalicia, dearest, I brought you a snack." Khalicia licked her lips with her bloated black tongue. Charles saw fangs in her mouth and recoiled, horrified. "Just the first knuckles on the left hand, though," vin Drako addressed her. "The rest we'll save for later."  
The zombie pouted. "Tender, tender flessshhhh," she rasped. "Tender flessshhhh. Want more!"  
The sorcerer smiled coldly at Charles, who was now trembling in utter terror. "The longer the girl eludes me," he promised, "the more of your hand you will lose."   
  
Charles could remember nothing of his close encounter with the zombie after waking up in darkness again. The last thing he could recall was the leering, toothy face of the dead woman as she approached him. His fingers, or what was left of them, were wrapped in crude bandages. He was in a dizzy, cold sweat from the pain, which kept sleep at bay and left him shivering and miserable, truly wanting for the first time in his young life to be dead. But death would not release him gently. Charles knew beyond a doubt that if he did not do something, he would die slowly and painfully. The sting in his hand was only a pale shadow of what was to come.  
Later, the light came back, and Grubsuckle returned dutifully with an edible meal: two crusts of stale bread, a rotten orange, and a skin of water.  
"Grubsuckle does the master's bidding," the goblin announced, putting the items down on the floor.  
Charles ignored them and looked forlornly at his jailer. "Please," he said piteously, "could I get some healing? I think my wounds are infected." It wasn't exactly a lie. He held up his dirty, bandaged hand for inspection.  
Grubsuckle hesitated. He imagined what vin Drako would do to him if he let the boy die of infection after only the first day of torture. The goblin didn't have a particularly fertile imagination, but even he could envision the outcome of that event. He started forward. "Grubsuckle will take you to Meatgrinder," he whispered thoughtfully. "He breaks things, he puts them together again, yes...but we must be quiet. Grubsuckle not knows the master's will." The goblin came jerkingly toward him as if every movement taken of his own initiative pained him, and unlocked the shackles binding Charles.  
The goblin was accustomed to hauling the boy's limp form up the winding stairways and twisting corridors of vin Drako's tower fortress. He was not prepared for his prisoner's sudden move, and was caught off-guard when Charles snatched up the chain and beamed him on the head with the heavy iron shackle. Grubsuckle fell back and tried to scramble away, but Charles pounced on him, pinning him down. The two struggled wildly, kicking and flailing. Charles was no titan, especially in his weakened state, but neither was the goblin. Charles managed to wrap the chain around Grubsuckle's neck and pulled it tight enough to make the goblin's eyes bulge. Grubsuckle futilely slapped at the boy's hands.  
"Stop that, and I'll let up!" Charles said, disgusted at the thought of strangling the creature to death, even one as wretched as Grubsuckle. The obsequious goblin did as he was told.  
Charles loosened the chain by a link and fumbled about the goblin's person for weapons. He spotted the hilt of a dagger poking out of the top of Grubsuckle's floppy leather boots, snatched it up and held it to its owner's throat. The thing was notched and rusted; not a particularly heroic weapon, but it was a weapon that he now possessed and his jailer did not.  
"Please, master," whined the goblin. "You would not hurt poor old Grubsuckle, would you? Grubsuckle will do your bidding, yes... Grubsuckle just wants to please his generous master."  
For some reason, the creature's pleas made Charles feel filthy inside. He almost lost his nerve, but managed to summon a burst of anger to chase away his doubt.  
"You- you loathsome sycophant!" he cried out, trembling. He dug the blade into Grubsuckle's throat, just hard enough to draw a drop of blood.  
"Please, please," the goblin whined on. "I exist only to do your bidding! Tell Grubsuckle what he must do to earn your favor, merciful master."  
Charles looked at him thoughtfully. "Do you know a way out of here? A secret way?" He slapped the goblin on the face, not very hard, but hard enough to suggest a penchant for violence. "If you don't, well, then I have no more need of you." He emphasized his point with another dig from the blade.  
"Y-y-y-y-y-y-yes," Grubsuckle stuttered. "But a very dangerous path, yes!"  
"Not as dangerous as staying here," Charles countered. "For me, or for you I'll wager. He will kill you, you know that, don't you? If we get out of here alive, you can be free."  
"No, no, no, no, no!" the goblin sobbed suddenly. "Not free. Grubsuckle will serve his generous master."  
"Well...all right," Charles said, thinking he'd give his new lackey the slip as soon as he was out of the Hellspire. "Will you promise to help me if I let you up now?"  
Grubsuckle nodded eagerly. "I swear it! Grubsuckle exists to serve his generous master."  
"Cross your heart and hope to die?" The goblin repeated the words with enthusiasm. Charles hesitantly stood up and stuck the dagger in his belt.  
"Now, which way?" he demanded in his most commanding voice. The goblin began to tremble, saying nothing. "Which way?" Charles repeated, more insistently.  
Grubsuckle flinched from meeting his new master's gaze. "Th-th-th..." he stammered. "Through the Crypt of the Damned."   
  
"We're not in league with the Evil Despoiler of Trees!" Tweedle shrieked repeatedly. "Oh, wicked elf! Never did I imagine a day when I would be tormented by an elf!"  
"You attacked us," Parethiel reminded him patiently.  
Lady Dee, an incongruously named pixie, for though the creature was dressed in feminine garments, it was clearly male, gave the high-strung Tweedle an irritated glance. "As far as we know, we are the only creatures living in this wood who are not yet enslaved to his will. Of course we must be ready to react to any new threat that may arise."  
The fat one, Master Dum, attempted to flutter his wings in a display of rebelliousness. The pixies were packed in the party's saddlebags as tight as sardines in a can, though, and his efforts were fruitless.  
"I am sorry for the loss of your kin," Parethiel said. "If what you say is true, your kind has suffered needless violence this day. It would have been wiser to parley before attacking." The elf stood up and paced over to where Liam and Odie were waiting and silently watching the exchange.  
"Do you believe them?" Liam asked Parethiel as he approached.  
"My instincts tell me that they are speaking the truth," Parethiel replied thoughtfully.  
"Bah! Pixies!" Odie exclaimed. "STICKY pixies!"  
"Speaking of sticky..." Liam muttered, trying in vain to run his hand through his hair where honey had matted it together like glue. Odie just shrugged apologetically.  
"Let us go, wicked elf!" Tweedle wheedled, to which Lady Dee whipped his head around and smacked him with his long, pointy nose.  
"Shut up, you fool!" To Parethiel he called out, "Elf! I do not believe that we are on opposite sides of this conflict. My kind knows this forest better than any, and we are well informed of its secrets. If you truly wish to enter the tower to rescue your friend, we will show you a hidden entrance in exchange for our freedom."  
The elf said to him, "We will consider your offer." He turned to his companions and shrugged. "I do not fear their darts, only that they might lead us astray," Parethiel said quietly to Liam and Odie.  
"LYING PIXIES!" Odie bellowed, furiously stomping the ground. "LYING, STICKY PIXIES." Tweedle and several of his companions responded with a shrieking cacophony of protests.  
Liam said, "Let them loose, and see what they have to offer. We will judge them on the advice they offer, and if they disappear into the woods, we've lost nothing."  
"Unless they are spies," Parethiel said, although his tone implied that he thought that unlikely. As usual, the dwarf's opinion was overridden. Parethiel loosened the saddlebag that contained the three war leaders, but kept the others in their bags, under the vigilant eyes of Odie. The dwarf scowled menacingly at them for about three seconds, at which time he promptly burst into song and dug around for his last jar of honey, generously offering a taste to his captives, who refused.  
Tweedle and Lady Dee fluttered on ahead, leading the group to the edge of a rocky gorge. From there they could see vin Drako's tower, the Hellspire, on the other side. Made of black stone, it rose out of the ground like a beacon of doom, tearing apart the low clouds that always hovered over it. Birds of prey circled around it, their cries carried on a sudden wind that whipped through the trees, and the sky seemed suddenly darker.  
"We must leave the horses," Parethiel shouted above the howling wind, to which Liam nodded.  
"And the captives?" he yelled back, shrugging.  
"Let them decide their fate," the elf reasoned, pointing at the three pixies scurrying for a windbreak to avoid being blown away.  
"Down at the bottom of the gorge!" Lady Dee shrieked as the wind picked him up and slammed him into a tree. "No more than a mile to the south, there's a tunnel where water drains out!" The pixie's last words faded as he slumped over, unmoving, his back twisted at an odd angle. Lightning forked down from the sky and blasted a nearby tree, sending the panicked horses bolting with their captives in tow.  
Liam cursed. "Where's Tweedle and Dum?" he shouted, turning around to see the two pixies desperately clutching the back of Parethiel's cloak as it whipped in the wind. "Lady Dee!" cried Tweedle as he frantically tried to scramble up to Parethiel's shoulder. The elf, braced against the wind, made his way over to the fallen pixie.  
Lady Dee lay very still, his head thrown awkwardly to the side. Blood seeped out of his mouth, but his eyes stared comprehendingly at the figures hovering above him. "Dangerous path...into the crypts," he whispered hoarsely. Then he died. Tweedle and Master Dum began shrieking together in what the elf realized was a mystic chant. The fey creatures fell into their earsplitting song of grief, unaware of Parethiel as he began gathering up what supplies had not been lost with the horses.  
"Gather your people, and go back to your queen," he said when they were done. "You have lost many comrades today, and for that I am truly sorry. We must go onward, but I ask that you look after the horses. One of them is from Queen Estaria's own stock." As the pixies nodded their agreement, Parethiel turned back to his companions. "By the dying pixie's own words, this tunnel will lead us into the crypts underneath vin Drako's tower," the elf said, staring out at the distant spire.  
"Odie hates the wind," the dwarf grumbled. He looked back at the fallen Lady Dee, almost sadly, it seemed. "Crypts much less dangerous."  
"We'll see," Liam said as he went off to look for the best way down into the gorge. The footing was treacherous for him and potentially lethal for the heavy-footed dwarf, but Parethiel practically jumped off the cliff, agilely dropping from one foothold to the next as he accelerated to the bottom. By the time the other two were down in the gorge, Parethiel had been scouring the rocky riverbed for fifteen minutes and had found a way across.  
  
Charles felt almost euphoric as he followed the dirty goblin along the moldy and mildewed corridors. It felt so good to have the heavy shackles off his raw-chafed wrists that he could've almost smiled, but the dull, throbbing ache in his left hand made that a remote possibility at best. The damnable slaad had put up such a racket upon seeing him freed, that Charles had urged Grubsuckle off down the corridor at once, hoping to escape the din as much as the dungeon. They passed many iron cages and stone cells with barred iron gates and heavy oaken doors, some sporting small, barred windows, and all of them having either sturdy locking bars or heavy, and heavily rusted, iron locks, or both. Moans of agony and misery emanated from some of them as they passed on by.  
Sssskreeeekkkkkkk!  
Boy and goblin drew up cautiously at a sharp sound echoing from far behind them, as of the squealing of metal upon metal. Grubsuckle wore a rather confused expression upon his ugly features.  
"Faster!" Charles prompted, prodding his filthy servant along. Finally, they came to the end of the winding corridor and pulled up short before a great brass door, obscenely ornate, covered with runes and arcane writings of countless variety, and set with precious stones of differing shapes and sizes, with a brilliantly-sculpted latch-handle attached to the exact center of the brightly-glowing, circular portal. A large mirror set within a silver frame rich with filigree sat opposite the door.  
"Through th-there," Grubsuckle said, pointing at the great round door. The goblin grabbed the latch and pulled, then started to shake visibly as his eyes bulged out, big in their sockets. Finally, he was able to wrench his hands free; he looked at Charles and the boy saw smoke emanating from the goblin's notched ears. "Me eat a bad grub?" Grubsuckle asked, a bit dazed as his eyes swam in opposite circles.  
Then something moved down the corridor behind them. It came into the continuous light of the portal then... the sorcerer's zombie.  
"Tender, tender flessshhhh," rasped Khalicia, spraying the greenish-brown ichor from her big and black, swollen tongue with each syllable she hissed through her yellowed fangs as her eyes bobbed upon the decayed flesh of her sunken cheeks. Across the cold stone floor, Erik's first wife left a trail of festering slime and squirming maggots. "Yesss, yesss," the gruesome thing cackled on. "Must have more tender, tender flessshhhh!"  
Charles recoiled in a panic and reached out reflexively for the door latch with his right hand.  
Grubsuckle caught it before it got there. "No time! No time, Master!" the duckfoot squeaked out in fear. "This way!" Grubsuckle pulled a confused Charles towards the mirror and hopped through, dragging the terrified boy with him, and leaving the hideous, flesh-sloughing zombie behind them. They arrived in a large dark room, lit by a single brazier burning a sharp and pungent incense.  
The boy's jaw dropped in terror and his eyes grew large as he realized they had come into Erik's summoning chamber. They lad's eyes grew larger still when he spotted the wicked sorcerer at the same time the sorcerer spotted him from across the intricate glyphs and designs etched upon the circle of summoning inlaid into the glass-like, obsidian stone of the chamber's floor. "Bugger-me-blue!" Charles quipped out tragically as Erik vin Drako snarled out a curse and turned towards him, long-nailed fingers twitching in anticipation of the impending doom he was about to mete out.  
Grubsuckle squeaked out in absolute terror and dove for the mirror again. His head bounced away with a loud thump. "Other side, stoopid! Other side!" the goblin yelled at himself. He ran around to the other side of the mirror and hopped through the portal once more.  
Charles tore his eyes away from the enraged sorcerer bearing down upon him... and leapt after a fleeing Grubsuckle. They came into a small room filled with a miscellany of odd and obscure objects, a scattering of old yellowed scrolls, and shelves filled with ancient and heavy tomes, covered in a thin layer of dust. It looked to be the sorcerer's study.  
"Oooooo! Bad master's magic trove!" Grubsuckle chirped out excitedly, and began stuffing pouch after pouch, vial after vial, into his grubby leather satchel. Charles grabbed a wand up from a desktop and then paused as something else caught his eye. A weathered and yellowed old scroll displayed atop the desk in a glass case, and resting upon a red satin pillow. The lad reached for the glass cover with his good hand, then hesitated in fear.  
"No time!" Grubsuckle growled out at the boy, and smashed the glass with a clenched fist. He pulled the parchment from the broken case and stuffed the scroll into Charles' ragged trouser pocket. There was no door apparent, and an agitated goblin began urging the youth towards the mirror again. At the last moment, Charles spotted a shining black horn lying upon a shelf and grabbed it up, slinging its worn leather strap over head and shoulder as Grubsuckle pulled him through the large mirror a third time.  
The pair came back into the dungeon corridor before the great brass door again, where the zombie awaited them. Khalicia came on once more.  
Grubsuckle dodged aside and Erik's long-dead wife came at the boy. "Yesss! Tender, tender flessshhhh!" she hissed, "Khalicia will taste of it, yesss!"  
"Back! BACK!" Charles pulled the rusty dagger from his belt with his good hand, and waved it at the undead thing before him, menacingly. But it was the ruby-tipped wand, still clutched loosely in his mangled hand, that pulsed with light and energy... and brought the vile creature to heel.  
"Master is a mighty magelord!" Grubsuckle cried out gleefully. The disbelieving youth gawked incredulously as the snarling zombie became complacent and obedient before him.  
Sssskreeekkkkkkk! Sssskreeekkkkkkk! Sssskreee-unnnnch! "Fre-ee-ee!" a deep, croaking roar sounded from down the corridor. Then the sounds of a very large something came thumping down the winding corridor in their direction. Squelch! Squelch!  
"Uh-oh!" the goblin muttered loudly. "Bugger-ME-blue, too!"  
"Wh-what... what is it?" Charles had to ask.  
"Me forgots to relock demon-frog's cage after feeding time!" Grubsuckle cried out, nervously.  
The slaad came barreling into the half-light thrown by the magic door, broken chains dangling from the great iron shackles locked upon its thick and rubbery wrists... and Charles did the only thing he could think of. "Kill! KILL!" he screamed out at the quiet zombie, who turned in the direction of the slaad... and moved to obey.  
Without any further hesitation, the human boy took a deep breath, held it, and reached for the ornate latch upon the circular brass door. Nothing happened. He felt the warmth of the bright metal beneath the fingers of his one good hand, and pulled with all his might. The big door swung open in almost absolute silence... almost. " vin Drako," it whispered softly as it swung wide. The boy resumed breathing, and ignoring the snarling sounds of combat behind him, Charles leapt through the open doorway, with the spindly-limbed, pot-bellied goblin no more than half a step behind.   
  
Erik vin Drako slammed shut the ancient tome of demon lore he had been studying in irritation, causing dust to rise up into his angrily flared nasal passages. The great sorcerer sneezed. Stalking over to the ornately carved doors on the northeastern side of his chamber, he muttered an obscure arcane phrase and set the head of his staff in the lock.  
The doors slid open, revealing a gloomy passageway lined by alcoves and lit only by faintly glowing stones set in the recesses. Inside the alcoves were glass barriers, and behind those stood four men, one in each niche, catatonic and expressionless, except for perhaps a hint of malice in their identical glittering, black eyes. They all looked exactly like Erik vin Drako. Erik paused before the first of the men and spoke a word to activate the glass barrier. It slid smoothly up, and after another command, the clone blinked as if coming out of a deep slumber. He immediately tried to push past the real vin Drako, but the sorcerer laid the staff across the niche with a challenging glare and the clone fell back as if stunned. "What are your orders, master?" the clone asked in vin Drako's own voice.  
"I have a couple of escaped prisoners that need to be rounded up and recaptured," the sorcerer said brusquely. "They should not present a challenge for you, but they must be recovered soon, alive. The fools will try to escape through the Crypt of the Damned and will not survive it." vin Drako conjured up an image of Charles and Grubsuckle for the clone's reference. Then he cast another spell, polymorphing the clone into another form, one that would be familiar to Charles. "Your name is Liam. Your mutual friend Eliza is still safe in the Forest of Andalast. You will have a dwarf companion named Odikin."  
The sorcerer repeated the process with the next clone. "Your name is Odikin. People call you Odie, and you are considered to be a great fool," he told him. "Your mutual friend Eliza is still safe in the Forest of Andalast. You will have a human companion named Liam." vin Drako stepped back to appraise them as the two clones stepped out of opposite alcoves and faced him expectantly. "Do you understand your assignment?"  
"Yes, master," the clones replied, in the voices of their respective stolen identities. vin Drako nodded, pleased. His clones possessed only a fraction of his own power, but he didn't trust them enough to have it any other way. They were quite capable of smoothing out the glitches that invariably accompanied any scheme complicated enough to merit carrying out.  
"Good," vin Drako said, dismissing them. "When you capture them, lock and shackle them in separate cells until I have time to deal with them, and report back to me. Now, be off! I'm rather busy at the moment."  
As the clones obediently filed out of the passageway, vin Drako stepped over to the last of the three rows, where his two remaining simulacra stared blankly back at him. He paused, reflecting on how rare it was for four of his clones to be out at once.  
  
  
  
Later the same night that Eliza had fell asleep so peacefully in Astesion's arms, she stirred nervously in her sleep, coming awake to the sounds of his soft breathing and the light pattering of rain. She sat up, clutching a blanket to herself, feeling her heart knocking out a warning against her chest. What had startled her so? As her breathing returned to normal, an image suddenly broke against the shores of her memory, the flash of... A knife in the dark. Someone holding her down, pressing a blade to her vulnerable belly. As she tried to remember the face of her assailant, another picture swam back to her: Queen Estaria in a robe made of white feathers, wearing the mask of an owl.  
"He acts out of spite and out of fear," the queen whispered. "He is netted in his own hatred for the magelord who hunts you. He would see the life in you destroyed before given over to vin Drako."  
"No," Eliza whimpered, tears falling down her face. In the dream, a white feather came loose from her mask and floated gently to the queen's feet.  
"Do not despair," she said, for the dream-Eliza had uttered the same denial.  
"Eliza?" came Astesion's sleepy call. He reached out for her, and not finding her resting beside him, he half sat up in bed. "What's wrong?"  
She turned to him, tears rimming her wide eyes, her body stiff and unreceptive. He reached out to stroke her cheek, but she recoiled and looked away. "Why don't you tell me exactly how you lost your wings?" she said bitterly.  
Astesion crinkled his brow. "Is this really the time to be telling such tales? You obviously haven't had a very restful sleep. That particular story won't help the matter, believe me."  
"Tell me. Now." The sudden steel in her voice made him blink in surprise. After a moment, he settled back on the pillow, locking his hands together behind his head.  
"As you wish," he said. He let out a breath. His face was half cast into shadow, but his ruby eyes still glittered in the dark. "It began several years ago...twenty, perhaps? Twenty-five? Time never had much meaning to me as mortals measure it.  
"Powerful spell casters in your world sometimes summon creatures from my own realm to aid them when they are in need. So it was with Lady Carmen, a young, but undeniably talented elven sorceress. She was defending a human caravan from a party of giants, but could not hold all of the creatures off of the helpless merchants by herself, and so she called upon me. From the moment I saw her, I fell in love with her. She was of Andalast, with the golden hair and pearly skin that marks the fair folk of that region."  
"You were attracted to her," Eliza interpreted cynically.  
"I loved her, Eliza. Yes, I was attracted to her beauty, and to her spirit. I began to visit her frequently, and was loathe to go back to the planes when my duties called me. Sometimes we would just sit for hours under the cherry trees or by the riverbank, and she would accompany me with her lovely voice while I played the lute. Months, perhaps years, passed. The time changed her not at all, and I hardly noticed how much time I had spent in her world.  
"I neglected my celestial duties for the sake of one mortal elf maid, which earned me the censure of my betters. I resented their interference, and tried for a time to convince Carmen to leave the mortal realm behind. `Not before my time comes will I set my foot in Arvandor,' she'd say stubbornly. I couldn't deny her respect for natural order, but I became frustrated by her refusal to meet me halfway. My feelings for her did not diminish, but the pressure from my superiors also continued to wear on me. For a few years, I saw very little of her, but thought of her often.  
"She was a bold girl, always one to seize any opportunity to develop her natural talents. In time, she heard of a powerful sorcerer who had come to control the human lands to the south and east. Like a moth to a flame, she was drawn to him."  
"Erik vin Drako?" Eliza asked, aghast. How anyone could willingly walk into Erik's tower was beyond her comprehension.  
"The same." Astesion was silent for a moment, as if he was warring with his memories. Finally he continued, "vin Drako kept a low profile on his demonic dealings in those days. It wasn't as if he walked about town in black robes with human skulls dangling from his belt. He managed to keep an air of respectability, though when I found out who she had chosen as a mentor, I was suspicious. Something about him seemed sinister to me, and I have come to trust my instincts about that sort of thing.  
"Carmen accused me of jealousy whenever I raised any kind of objection..." Astesion trailed off. "Perhaps I drove her into his arms," he said after a long pause.  
"Or maybe he seduced her with magic," Eliza replied darkly.  
"Maybe it was a little of both," he said. "But inevitably, he made her miserable. I do not know what transpired between them in the end, but when he was done tormenting her, he cast her through one of his mirror-portals... into the Abyss.  
"It was years before I tracked her down. She was being held in the Broken Tower, an outpost in the Plains of Desolation, where betrayed lovers are condemned to an eternity of the same brand of torment that led them to their death. Except Carmen wasn't dead. I carried with me a golden ring which was attuned to her life essence, a gift she had given me in happier days, and I knew that she still lived.  
"I had two companions who insisted on following me to the Broken Tower, those who I'd met during my travels and who had become closer to me than any of my celestial brethren. You've met them."   
"Sicxlemire and Kosikko-kiro?"  
"We go back a long way," Astesion confirmed. "And although I protested their coming at first, it was they who saved my life when we reached the Broken Tower. It was a place no celestial could enter, Eliza, but I entered it." Bitterness turned his words dark and ugly.  
"But how?" Eliza asked softly.  
"By my will alone, I entered through its dark gate. We fought fiends every step of the way. But the farther in I went, the more of my divinity was stripped from my soul, until at last when I reached the doors of my love's secret prison, there was little left of me. My wings, the physical trappings of my former identity, were the last to go, burning up around me in one sudden blast of heat like a halo of flames. I collapsed at Carmen's feet, unable to summon the strength to free her from her chains, but her hand she pressed into mine, and I felt the warmth of her essence flow into the golden ring.  
"Kos and Sicxlemire burst through the door, weary and wounded. They had slain the demon lord of the tower, but in the last moments its unnatural existence, it snuffed out the lives of its prisoners. Gradually the ring cooled. I looked up and saw that Carmen's eyes were closed. A peaceful look had come to her lifeless face. I had failed in all ways but one: her spirit was free."  
"Then you succeeded," Eliza protested. "Perhaps she is in Arvandor, even now."  
"She is," said Astesion. "Though, mercifully, she remembers nothing of her mortal life. When I sail the Oceanus through the elven realm in Arborea, I look for her on the banks. She is usually there, singing."  
Eliza considered the story for a long moment. The dream images seemed so distant now, but still... "Now I see why you wanted to protect me," she said cautiously.  
Astesion sat up and stroked her hair gently. "I would have protected you anyway," he said. "But you still seem troubled. Did I not predict my story would upset you?"  
Eliza shook her head, letting him draw her closer. "It's not that... it's just that I had a dream about someone attacking the baby, and..."  
He put a finger to her lips. "Your fears are normal, Eliza. And as long as you wish for my protection, you shall have it. But I am no longer immortal, and I must rest just as you must. Do you think you can sleep now?"  
"Yes," Eliza said, settling back down in the blankets. And sleep did come, but not easily.  
  
Erik vin Drako peered into his scrying mirror, deep in concentration. He'd panned out from where his clone lay, seemingly helpless in his cell, to a great vault that his scrying spells had not been able to penetrate. Yet. If he weren't so focused on his task, he would have cracked an evil grin, perhaps even cackled maniacally into the empty chamber. He'd been wanting to see into Queen Estaria's court for a long time, and only with his clone present as a familiar focus had he been able to manage it at all. Now he tightened his focus on the door of the vault, forcing his mind's eye through multiple barriers of lead and stone. He felt the protective magic give way to his mental onslaught.  
vin Drako caught his breath. He almost trembled with anticipation. How he enjoyed being proven right! Even if it was only to himself! He wished Grubsuckle were there to share the magnificence of his intellect. Now he did let out an unearthly howl of jubilation. There it was, a glittering, ancient, magical thing. The Krysolis.  
  
vin Drako's schemes were in motion as soon as his suspicions were confirmed. After another virgin sacrifice (he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel lately; the last two had required maximum-potency strength enhancement spells just to lift them onto the dais), he settled back on his throne, awaiting his infernal visitor.  
The creature that appeared in his summoning circle was grotesque. Bags of brownish green skin hung from its squat body, which, at six feet in height, was nearly as wide as it was tall. A gaping maw, slavering yellow, noxious ichor yawned in the sorcerer's direction, and its baleful red eyes glinted menacingly from under a flap of maggot-infested flesh. vin Drako had once found the shator's appearance rather droll, even laughable. Then he'd learned better. "Yoouuu...dare...sssummon _me_ to the Prime?" the shator hissed. It came forward, powerful claws oozing some sort of disgusting lower planar slime, but hit the invisible barrier at the edge of vin Drako's circle.  
"Xssyziviccass," vin Drako addressed him politely. "Please, save your ire for the time being. I understand how much you hate to be interrupted in _whatever_ it is you gehreleths like to do, but I think you may find it worth it to hear what I have to say."  
"Xssyziviccass has not forgotten the lassst time you sssummoned It, mageling... A chapter from the Book of Keeping, you promisssed." The shator swung its mangy head at vin Drako and snarled, showing rows of razor sharp fangs.  
"I can do better than that, dear Xssyziviccass," vin Drako said, holding up a stack of parchments bound together with silk threads. A diagram on the front page caught the shator's attention, and it sprang with surprising speed for the book, testing vin Drako's bonds once again. They held good. The shator emitted a pernicious stench and growled unpleasantly. "The first chapter will be yours, of course," said vin Drako. "But I have since pieced together what I believe is over a third of the original text. Are you interested?"  
The growling sounds became affirmative.  
"Good," vin Drako purred. "I'd be willing to sell you what I have for...oh...the short term services of you and your minions."  
Xssyziviccass considered this for a moment, but greed won out. "How ssshort term?" the monstrous deformity asked, running a scarred and blackened tongue along its teeth. "And how many of my minionsss?"  
vin Drako stood up and pulled a map down from behind his throne. He pointed to a large forest with his wand and said, "Enough to sack a well-defended elven court, for as long as it takes to bring it to ruin."  
"Ahhhhh." The shator steepled its fingers under its massive quadruple chin. "Xssyzivicass getsss the Book of Keeping in payment for killing elvesss. And what does the sssorcerer get?"  
"Satisfaction," vin Drako replied. "An enemy divided, a meddling cadre of too-old witches decimated." And a diversion to give his waylaid clone the opportunity to steal the Krysolis and escape, he thought privately.  
"Xssyziviccass. Two lieutenant ssshatorsss. Sssix kelubar. Ninety-nine farassstu," the creature ticked off. "Againssst what force?"  
"The elven people are dwindling in Andalast. Fewer than two hundred dwell at the Queen's court. Of those, I doubt more than two or three have weapons enchanted powerfully enough to affect you; perhaps twenty have swords that can harm your rank-and-file troops. You can expect a few volleys of magical arrows, perhaps, but nothing your farastu can't survive. The only thing keeping her realm from utter annihilation is a magical dome that hedges out beings of the Lower Planes."  
The shator hissed. That, of course, was a problem.  
vin Drako smiled coldly, showing his teeth, and held out a thick rod for the gehreleth's inspection. "You can all fly, and you can all become invisible. You need only seconds to get all of your forces inside the dome. With this rod, you can cancel its effects for a short time. It can be used only once, however, so your timing must be precise."  
"Xssyziviccass knowsss what that isss," the shator said eagerly, reaching for it.  
vin Drako chuckled, pulling it away. "Do not even think of using it on my circle," he said, flicking his wrist in an easy gesture to make his hand flare up with magical flames, "or the Book burns."  
Xssyziviccass snarled and growled, but the creature was too sensible to toy with a powerful sorcerer when the much sought-after Book of Keeping was at stake. Besides, it had traded worse services than killing elves. This time when vin Drako offered it the rod, the shator accepted it with a polite cloud of stench and departed as happily as a gehreleth can be.  
  
Charles felt the darkness press in around him. In a silent chamber, ragged fingernails bit into his arm, and the smell of moldering corpses and unwashed goblin assailed his nostrils.  
"Um...it's really dark in here," the boy said nervously, shaking off Grubsuckle's painful grasp.  
He heard the goblin fumbling around for something. "Grubsuckle can see in the dark. Oh, yesss. But Grubsuckle's generous master needs light." A torch flared up, burning away the cobwebs around them with a quiet crackle and a brief flash of radiance. "Grubsuckle pleases his new master?" the creature asked in a pathetic voice.  
"That's great. Really," Charles replied, taking the torch from the goblin. They were in a long passageway with numerous alcoves and doorways along the sides. A line of sarcophagi stretched end to end down the middle of the corridor, vanishing into the blackness up ahead. A thick layer of dust, kicked up suddenly after perhaps a decade of settling, sent them both into a fit of coughing. Charles recovered first. "Is this the Crypt of the--"  
"Shhhh!" Grubsuckle hissed, putting a grimy hand over his mouth, which Charles promptly snatched away. "The Dead don't like that word."  
"What word?"  
"Th-th-th-the word you almost said," the goblin sputtered in a sudden panic.  
"What, `damned'?"  
"Shhhh!"  
"What was that?"  
_Chink. Chink. Chink._  
Charles instinctively drew back into a darkened alcove, accidentally knocking into a stone sarcophagi and setting a tattered raiment hanging over the coffin on fire. "Son of a...a dairymaid!" the boy cursed, hastening to stomp out the fire as the goblin squeaked and cringed along the wall. "What was that?" he asked his cowering companion.  
"Ch-ch-ch-ch-chains. It sounded l-l-like ch-chains!"  
The noise was louder now, and no longer the solitary jangling of a beast bound helplessly to a wall; instead the rattling was slow but insistent, the unmistakable sound of a creature _walking_. And it was walking toward them.  
A horrid shrieking sound filled the corridor, echoing off the stones as if the catacombs themselves had awoken from an unnatural slumber.  
"Put out the light!" Charles whispered frantically, his hands shaking so violently he couldn't do it himself. But Grubsuckle was no help, cringing on the floor, clutching his ugly little face with his bony hands.  
Then the cover of the sarcophagus he was crouching behind began to shift. Charles yelped and dragged Grubsuckle to his feet. "Back the way we came!" he shrieked, running toward the door of the crypt with the goblin in tow, as a tremendous crash came from the alcove.  
There was no latching mechanism on the inside of the door. Charles pounded one small fist against it ineffectively, until Grubsuckle tugged on his sleeve and motioned, with terrified eyes, toward the creature that had come shambling out of its coffin.  
The flesh had long since fallen off the skeleton's bones, leaving nothing but long, yellowed sticks upon which rested a grinning skull, infested with a family of rats that peered out of the eye sockets with their own malignant intensity. Charles desperately pointed the ruby-tipped wand at the skeleton as it drew toward them. "Go away!" he commanded, his voice cracking.  
A white rabbit appeared on the floor, and scurried away.  
"What?" Charles protested. He pointed the wand again. "Go AWAY!"  
This time a lightning bolt came streaking out of its tip, blasting the skeleton backwards, reducing it into a blackened heap.  
Grubsuckle began applauding. "Master is MIGHTY! And so generous, oh yes!"  
Charles wasn't all that confident in the wand's abilities, much less his own, but terror and exhaustion had pushed him to desperation. He had a locked door at his back and an unknown adversary out in the blackness beyond, still rattling its chains in some distant passageway.  
"Are you sure the way out is ahead?" he asked Grubsuckle wearily, in the tone of a man condemned to execution.  
"Y-y-yes, master, but...th-th-the chains..." the goblin whimpered.  
Charles drew his rusty dagger with his right hand and held out the wand awkwardly in the mangled fingers of his left. "Then let's charge," he said grimly.  
  
Parethiel was scouting along the banks of the river when he heard a familiar whistle from above. He looked up to see an elfmaid crouched upon the edge of the cliff-face, silhouetted against the dying sun.  
"Shida!" he called to her as she came bounding down over the rocks, as sure-footed as a mountain goat. Behind her came her twin Sansorin, soberly descending to the banks of the river.  
"It is too long since we have spoken, brother-in-arms," Shidamae said, embracing him. Sansorin gave Parethiel a respectful nod and clasped his wrist. "A fruitless chase has kept us busy. But there will be time for that tale later." She looked past Parethiel and across the river, where Liam and Odie were struggling to cross on the wet rocks.   
"Are these the companions of the Chosen Mother?" she asked.  
"They are," responded Sansorin before Parethiel could speak. "I met them in Maywood." His tone was not entirely complimentary. "We have been looking for you," he continued, "and searching for a drain along the cliff face that would connect to the lower passages of the sorcerer's tower. But if one does exist, it is cunningly concealed. The stone has eluded us both."  
"I have information that confirms such a tunnel does exist," Parethiel said. His eyes strayed to the now-prone Odie, flopping and twitching in the water as Liam attempted to pull him up onto a rock. "Perhaps the dwarf may be of some assistance in finding it," he said, a smile quirking the corners of his mouth.  
Sansorin regarded the struggling creature with coolly narrowed eyes. "I'm willing to believe that there may be some dwarves who have their uses, but that one," he sniffed, "most assuredly does not."  
"Oh, don't be so insufferably superior," Shidamae teased him. She pulled a long silk rope from her belt and looped one end around a rocky outcropping, then twirled the other end in a graceful arc, letting it sail through the air and smack Liam on his backside. Liam shook his head wryly and nodded his thanks, then tied his end around the rock and helped Odie pull himself up.  
"Odie hates water," the dwarf said with sheepish embarrassment as he clambered out of the river, soaked and bedraggled.  
Sansorin ignored him. "It is almost nightfall," he observed. "If we are to have any chance of locating a secret tunnel, it would be now."  
"Secret tunnel!" Odie interjected happily, shaking himself off like a wet dog. Sansorin took a horrified step backward as water sprayed in all directions from his ratty beard. Shidamae just rolled her eyes at her fastidious brother and looked askance at Parethiel, who was smirking almost imperceptibly. Before any of them could say another word, the dwarf bounded off, sniffing the air and looking this way and that.  
"He's not as foolish as he seems," Liam said. "I'm going to follow him." Shidamae shrugged and led the other two elves in pursuit.  
A short while later, Odie found what he was looking for, a lead-lined pipe hidden behind an overhang of rock, concealed in a small grotto. When the others caught up to him, the dwarf was hanging half out of the pipe, legs dangling and twitching. His elbows banged against the sides, causing a terrible racket. "Odie's STUCK!" yammered the dwarf, his voice muffled.  
"Keep your voice down," Liam said, "and stop that banging, for gods' sakes." He turned to the elves, who didn't quite seem to know what to make of it all. "I might need help pushing his feet," he said, shaking his head in helpless resignation.  
After about ten minutes of the four of them pushing, prodding and twisting the dwarf, Odie managed to pull himself the rest of the way into the drain, though his girth made it impossible for him to move except at a snail's pace, and only with the assistance of the others behind him.  
Soon, though, the tunnel widened out until it was large enough for them to stand, and Liam lit a torch. A sluggish stream crawled along its bottom. The incessant dripping of water was the only sound other then the companions' slogging footsteps.  
"Which way?" Liam asked when the passage began branching off in different directions. Odie pointed confidently to the left.  
"Does he know where he's going?" Shidamae whispered, to which Parethiel shrugged.  
"No less than we do," he replied.  
After about an hour, they came to a wooden door. Odie promptly pulled out his axe, but Liam stopped him with an outstretched hand. "Let's at least see if we can get it unlocked," he said.  
The door was warped from disuse, and after several moments of examination, the others let Odie go ahead and bash it down.  
"So much for stealth," Shidamae said nervously.  
"There's still a lot of stone between us and Erik's tower," Liam said as they tromped through the splintered doorframe.  
"Then where are we now?" she muttered, following him into a chamber littered with human remains. As they all stepped into the room, the bones began to twitch, forming together into complete skeletons.  
"Hack them down!" Liam cried, drawing his sword. The others quickly drew their weapons, and before the undead could rise up against them, they smashed the animated skeletons into smithereens.  
The noise of the demolition, however, was enough to wake the dead. As they finished their macabre task, they heard an unearthly chorus of growls and the clacking of walking skeletons coming from farther into the tunnels.  
The five of them drew close, seeking out unseen enemies in the gloom. "We're in the prison of the dead," Liam said softly. 


	8. Prison of the Dead

Chapter Eight  
Prison of the Dead  
  
Charles ran ahead, his torch bobbing, Grubsuckle clinging to the back of his tunic as if the boy had become his personal savior. He expected at any second that something would jump out of one of the alcoves, or ambush them from a side passage. He could hear the crunch of something heavy walking on bones, still trailing those heavy chains behind it. Constant shrieks permeated the corridors, their echoes making it impossible to tell where they were coming from. Or was there more than one? Startled by that thought, Charles ran blindly on.  
Confused by the echoes, Charles was taken by surprise when the hideous abomination came out of the darkness, parting the light with its huge bulk and casting ghastly shadows down the length of the corridor. The skeletal form was larger than the monster Charles had defeated in the entrance, fleshless but writhing with slimy brown bags of pus that snaked around its spine and dangled out of its ribcage, dripping and oozing some unidentifiable foul ichor. Ending in a blackened claw, a bloated purple tongue lolled out of its bony jaw. It flickered back and forth as the monster came forward, slowed by thick chains that had broken away but were still shackled to its ankles.  
It was a tormented creature, twisted by a lifetime of committing evil deeds and warped even further by its perverse and unnatural existence. Although neither the boy nor the goblin knew it, the creature was a mohrg, and it despised all life.  
The mohrg let out a howl that sent shivers of fear right into Charles' bones. He started backing up, holding the wand out in front of him. "Back! Back!" he screamed, brandishing his torch as panic began to set in. T his time the wand did nothing, and if the mohrg was fazed by the leaping flames, it didn't show it. Charles fumbled with the wand again, but never got a second chance as the thing closed in. It lashed Grubsuckle in the face with its terrible tongue and slammed him against a sarcophagus, leaving the goblin dazed and stunned.  
"Grubsuckle?" Charles called out, backpedaling. His companion didn't respond.  
The boy lashed out with the torch, but the mohrg was just out of his short-armed reach. The huge creature brought a heavy claw down and raked it across his skinny chest, launching him through the air at the same time. Charles hit the wall and landed in a broken, bleeding heap on the floor.  
The torch landed in front of his face, still burning. The pain was greater than anything he had ever experienced, even worse than getting his fingers chewed on by the zombie. He fought to stay conscious, but his vision inevitably darkened, as if a black veil had been pulled over his eyes. The last things he saw before blacking out were a familiar pair of boots stomping on the mohrg's chain, and a broken human skull, still threaded with that glistening purple tongue, as it landed beside his still-burning torch.  
"Odie?" Charles wheezed, the name rattling in a throat that was quickly filling with blood.  
  
"Tenacious little bugger," he heard someone say. He tried to open his eyes, but all they would do was twitch uncontrollably, so he surrendered to the blackness and tried to rest. All at once, the pain flooded back to him, as if his entire torso had been rent asunder. He gave a weak moan to signal his distress, but no one seemed to hear.  
"He's going to need some emergency surgery or he'll die right here on the table." Even with his eyes closed, he could sense dark shapes flickering over him. He blinked. Liam was there, holding a needle and a scalpel. Then the blackness reasserted itself.  
"Did you check the goblin's pack?" said a voice above him, Liam, presumably.  
"One healing potion. Likely to drown him, in the state he's in right now."  
"Pour it directly onto his wounds, then."  
He felt a soothing tingle run through him, but the sensation only lasted a moment before the pain defeated it. _Agony_ was the only word that came to his mind. Were they cutting him open now, or stitching him shut? The question had barely found purchase in his addled thoughts when it was kicked out by a fresh wave of throbbing pain. Agony, agony, agony. He felt cold and dizzy, almost outside of himself.  
"Hand me that needle. The less rusty one."  
Was he dreaming? Something seemed out of place, unreal. The voices. They sounded like Liam and Odie, but the words...  
Charles drifted back into unconsciousness.   
  
"I can feel the disruption of the natural order here," Shidamae whispered. "It is as if someone has taken hold of my soul and twisted it."  
"Those growling noises up ahead are a pretty good indication, too," Liam quipped without humor.  
"Any chance you know a rhyme about killing undead, Odie?" he asked the dwarf, who had fallen oddly silent. Of all occasions, this was the one time he would have found his companion's singing comforting.  
"No rhymes," Odie responded hollowly, trudging on ahead without a backward glance.  
"Prepare yourselves," Parethiel said. "They are close, in the next room, I believe."  
The passageway ended at another warped wooden door, which Odie broke down with uncharacteristic apathy. He found himself in a chamber accessible from two sides, currently occupied by five skeletons. The dwarf raised his axe and charged into the group. Liam and the others flooded into the room and came forward, flanking the dwarf. Odie swiped one with his axe, obliterating it, and cleaved a second with little effort. The remaining skeletons, wielding various rusty instruments of torture, took repeated stabs at him, but did little other than scratch his tough hide. Shidamae joined the fray with a ferocity that surprised Liam, smashing a skeleton to pieces with one hit of her bastard sword. Liam and the other elves quickly hacked up the remaining two.  
"Whew," said Liam, taking a swig from his waterskin. "That was a pushover." He looked over at the dwarf, who was standing perfectly still, staring silently at his boots. "Odie?" Still the dwarf didn't respond.  
"Crypt madness," Sansorin said authoritatively. "Some people can't handle the sight of the dead walking. Though I wouldn't expect the dwarf to show any unusual effects from a mental affliction."  
"Odie can't help Charles," the dwarf said mournfully, shaking his head. "Odie can't help."  
"What do you mean?" Liam demanded. "Do you know something, Odie?"  
Behind him came Sansorin's patronizing snort. "I doubt it," he remarked.  
Shidamae bent down in front of the dwarf's face. "Odie, can you hear me? What do you see in your mind?"  
Odie pushed her away with surprising gentleness and picked up his axe to bash the next door down. "Time to go," he said softly, lifting his chin. The elfmaid was startled to see a solitary salty tear roll down the dwarf's cheek.  
  
"Go get Meatgrinder and give him the vial of vitreous humor," said the voice of Liam, out of the darkness and the void of sleep. "He won't last much longer without the ogre's salves and his expertise at handling them."  
The other voice grumbled. Charles heard footsteps receding. He managed to open his eyes fully this time, and found that his head had fallen to the side. He was lying on something hard and bumpy. There was stone under his elbow. He looked out and saw a sarcophagus at eye level a few feet away, a familiar form resting upon it.  
"Grubsuckle," Charles rasped. He could not tell if the creature was alive or dead.  
In response, the goblin began to twitch. Grubsuckle's mouth fell open, as if it were trying to speak, but only a faint gurgling sound came forth. Finally the goblin managed to twist its head around to face Charles.  
The boy let out a shocked cry that ended in a pitiful spasm. One of the goblin's eyes had been gouged out, leaving a wide, gaping hole slick with blood and tissue.  
"Be still," said the voice. The figure loomed above him. Liam's face. What was happening to him?  
Charles drifted in an out of consciousness, until finally becoming aware of footsteps approaching. There were three voices now, one unfamiliar. Suddenly, the realization that these were no friends of his, an idea that had been fomenting in his clouded mind, filled him with a nameless terror. He struggled to get up, only to find himself held down again by an infinitely stronger force. He started to scream.  
"Sew his mouth shut," said the one who sounded like Liam, in an icy tone that Liam never would have used.  
  
"Did you hear that?" Shidamae whispered from the darkness.  
Outside the range of his torchlight, the elves were invisible to Liam. His eyes danced with afterimages of the flames. Odie, slogging along beside him, stopped in his tracks.  
They heard it again- a crescendo of crying and shrieking, almost inhumanly anguished and as chilling as the squeal of a dying rabbit. Odie covered his ears and began shaking uncontrollably, nearly dropping his axe.  
"That was the cry of a living being," Parethiel said softly, after the sound died down to a low, muffled sobbing. Liam could barely see him, but he felt the elves' presence, and took comfort in their quiet resilience.  
Suddenly, he heard a scuffle in the blackness, the impact of metal on bone, and a moment later, a skeleton dropped to the floor just at the edge of the radius of Liam's light source, its brittle bones shattering on impact. Parethiel's sword flashed in the torchlight and he emerged from the darkness for half a second before melting back into the shadows, cloak trailing behind him. Then all was quiet again, save for the crunch of bone fragments beneath Liam and Odie's booted feet. Even the pitiful wailing had ceased.  
They came to a narrower stone passageway, with no exits on the side. The five companions continued single file, with Odie leading and Shidamae at the rear. Enormous, irregular stones formed a tenuous-looking vault that came to a peak high above their heads. The walls revealed a glistening reddish tinge in the torchlight. Liam reached out and tentatively touched the wall. It was moist, as if the stones themselves were weeping.  
As his fingertips grazed the wall, a ropy appendage came out of the stone and snared his wrist. Liam yelled out when he saw the slimy brown tentacle clutching him, crushing the bones in his wrist. He flailed wildly, trying to cut its grip with his sword, but another arm leapt out of the wall and pinned him fast, pulling him in as if to absorb him. His face was inches to a wall that had somehow become gelatinous, almost fleshy. An enormous black eye winked open, staring at him glassily. Liam saw his own face in its reflection, twisted with horror.  
Tentacles started sprouting out of the walls on both sides. Monstrous, leering faces appeared where rough stone had been before. Shidamae was pulled off her feet, dragged by her ankles. She stabbed out with her sword and plunged it into a great eye that had opened in front of her. Her blade punctured a sack of fluid, and a thick stream of gore gushed over her, smelling of rot and desiccation. Shidamae wiggled free of the tentacles and rolled to her feet, hacking furiously at the walls.  
Parethiel had reacted instantly to Liam's distress, launching a series of daggers and plugging them into the eye in a neat pattern around the man's head. Then he drew his swords and set them in motion, expertly severing the tentacles that had snaked their way around Liam. Sansorin and Odie were ahead of them, the elf spinning a circle with his blade, the dwarf merely chopping and hacking, springing from one wall to the other with reckless abandon. Bits of fleshly parts flew everywhere, spraying blood and ichor.  
Shidamae and Parethiel helped the shook-up Liam get his bearings, and then they ran. They ran until the corridor opened up into a wider chamber ending in a wide flight of stone stairs, and then they paused to catch their breath.  
Shidamae gave a startled laugh at Liam's face; he was completely covered in gobs of lumpy, foul-smelling goo from when Parethiel had exploded the eye right in his face. Shidamae and the others were little better off. With morbid fascination, she crept back to the edge of the passageway and saw that the walls had run down from about six feet from the ground, puddling into a pool of reeking, rancid flesh. Wrinkling her nose, she turned away and headed back to the group, finding Liam and Odie staring at living likenesses of themselves. Parethiel and Sansorin were nowhere in sight.  
"So, you are the one who is known as Liam," Liam's double addressed him, coming down the stairs. He, too, carried a torch and a long sword, mirroring the man's every movement with subtle grace and a perpetual sardonic smile. Behind him came a shorter figure, who stopped beside his companion, bouncing an axe in his palm and grinning sadistically.  
"So, you are the one who is known as the fool," he said to Odie, coming forward.  
Shidamae ran forward to cut off the one advancing on Liam, fearing that he was strongly overmatched. Her bastard sword came up to parry a blow that surely would have slain her fumbling companion, the enchanted blade sparking as it connected. Her arms ringing with pain, Shidamae was driven back by the sheer strength of her opponent, well concealed within his average-sized frame.  
As Liam brought his sword up and moved in to help her, a slender form flew out of the darkness and slashed at the back of the man's clone. Sansorin hit him four times before he turned around and brought his sword down in a devastatingly powerful chop. Sansorin dodged, suddenly wary. The clone lashed out with its elbow, catching Liam, creeping in from behind, in the gut and knocking him backwards. He skidded across the floor at the bottom of the stairs, only to look up and see an ogre stomping down toward him, wielding an enormous steel-enforced meat hammer, its handle longer than Liam's sword.  
Odie met his own clone head-on, axe against axe. He was joined by Parethiel as the elf struck simultaneously with Sansorin. Parethiel came in with both blades singing, slicing neat ribbons across the clone's back that hardly slowed him at all. Enraged, the clone whirled around with unexpected speed and struck out at the elf. Parethiel moved quickly to avoid being disemboweled, but the side of the axe struck him in a glancing blow on the arm.  
Pain shot through his wounded limb, and Parethiel lost his grip on one sword. He heard it clatter to the floor as he dove out of the way of the axe. Grimacing, he staggered back into the fight, one arm hanging broken and limp.  
Liam scrambled to his feet, dodging a heavy steel-toed boot as the ogre prepared to kick his face into the stone floor. The ogre roared and dropped the meat hammer down on him, but Liam moved quicker, darting forward with his sword. He slashed open the monster's bloodstained leather apron, taking off a tuft of hair with his blade in the process, but the attack didn't stop the thing. The ogre backed up the stairs, launching one arm back to get a powerful swing with the hammer, and Liam followed, keeping within its reach. As Liam lunged forward to take advantage of the ogre's exposed abdomen, it howled and dropped a heavy punch on him, knocking him back down the stairs.  
Shidamae stalked back into the fight, keeping a wary eye on the Liam-clone's back. Sansorin ducked and dodged, keeping well away from the clone's long sword, but although he had hit him perhaps a dozen times, the wounds seemed not to faze him. Then Shidamae lunged forward, her sword in a two-handed grip, and plunged it into him with all her strength. The clone whirled around and the elfmaid, startled to see her opponent still standing, let go of her blade, still embedded in his back, and hopped backward. He gave a fierce yell and came after the unarmed elf, sword leading. Shidamae, in her terror, didn't notice that her opponent was staggering, hardly able to stay on his feet. But it was Sansorin who leapt upon the clone, slicing his head off and sending it into its final throes.  
Odie fared better against his own clone, and while perhaps not matching him in sheer strength, the real dwarf made up for it in ferocity. As Parethiel came stubbornly back in to launch an attack on the clone, Odie chopped the back of his knees, hobbling him and making him an easy target for Parethiel's precise strikes. The clone stumbled, momentarily helpless, and the elf darted in and slit his throat. The dwarf-clone slumped over, spilling its life-blood on the stone floor.  
Liam knew he couldn't get up quickly enough this time. The ogre had knocked the wind out of him, but he felt like his back had been broken in about three places. He watched helplessly as the ogre raised the meat hammer over him--   
--only to see a hand axe come whistling through the air above him, to embed itself in the ogre's chest. The monster tipped forward, falling down the stairs, and Liam rolled out of the way of the tumbling behemoth. This time Odie didn't issue any rhymes or battle cries as he came forward to collect his throwing axe.  
Liam nodded his thanks and clambered to his feet, finding Shidamae and Sansorin looking at Parethiel's wound. The elf dismissed the Liam's look of concern.  
"It will heal," he said stoically, but there was pain written all over his face.  
Shidamae was fashioning a makeshift sling when they heard a moaning sound coming from the top of the stairs. Parethiel broke away and cautiously started up the steps, the others in quick pursuit.  
"Charles!" Liam exclaimed when he got to the top of the stairs and saw the boy lying on top of a stone sarcophagus, with an array of crude medical devices surrounding him. Curiously, there was a goblin lying on the one next to him, but Liam didn't note that at the time. "It's Charles," he said to the elves, but they needed no explanation. Odie had already rushed forward, cradling the head of the half-conscious boy and making strange, choked up sounds that could have been sobbing.  
Shidamae came over to his side and gasped when she saw his ghastly wounds, the stitches on his mouth. As she cut the stitches off, Liam came over to her.  
"My gods," he said softly, examining the deep claw marks that had ripped into the boy's chest.  
Shidamae was sniffing the ointments the ogre had left. "I fear to cover his wounds with a poultice," she said, her brow furrowed. "The marks have an unnatural festering in them, and they must be allowed to drain."  
Sansorin came over to look at them. "The infection may kill him, even if the wounds themselves do not. If so, we must be prepared. Some undead creatures can create spawn by killing the living."  
Liam stared at him, not sure he understood. "You're saying if he dies, he'll become...an undead thing?"  
"It is possible," was all the elf would say.  
Shidamae gently rubbed ointment into the boy's wounds. "I wish Diellin, or Aurilea were here. They could fix us all up."  
"Look at his hand," Sansorin remarked. He had unraveled the dirty bandages around Charles' fingers, and was holding them up for inspection. Shidamae let out a horrified cry.  
The fingers were green and purple, ending in darkened stumps where they had been bitten off right above the first knuckles. Shidamae soaked a fresh bandage in a bowl of water the ogre had left and cleaned the wounds as best she could, but her hands were trembling as she did it. "These are no battle wounds," she said, a quaver in her voice. "These are the scars of deliberate torture. How could anyone do such a thing to a child?"  
Liam shook his head. "Such questions are always asked when confronted with the atrocities one human being can visit upon another," he said. "There has never been a satisfactory answer."  
"This boy is no human," Parethiel observed quietly, from the side. He had been studying Charles' face the entire time.  
Liam's head snapped up. "What do you mean, `no human'?" he asked in dread. He had had enough surprises to last him a lifetime.  
"He is a half-elf. To a human, it might be difficult to see the difference. But look at the structure of his face, the shape of his eyes. He has elven blood in his veins."  
Liam didn't know what to think. He couldn't refute it, for the boy had been raised by foster parents ever since he'd known him.  
Shidamae had hardly been listening. "We have to get him out of here. I hope the way is clear behind us, because someone is going to have to carry him in their arms. It's the only way."  
As Liam gathered him up as gently as he could, Charles opened his eyes and stirred.  
"No!" he screamed, struggling futilely. "Get away, get away, get away!"  
Liam muffled his cries in his sleeve as Shidamae stroked his hair to calm him down. "Charles, can you hear me? We're not going to hurt you, Charles," she soothed. "We're going to take you back to Andalast, and you can see the Queen of the Elves. Would you like that?"  
"Let me go! You're not real! You're going to...you're going to..." the rest of his words were lost in a fresh wave of sobbing. Then he looked over and saw Sansorin, holding his sword over Grubsuckle's skinny form. The half-blinded goblin was twitching uncontrollably, trying to speak.  
"No, no, don't!" Charles shrieked, squirming as Liam picked him up.  
"Miserable goblin," said Sansorin. "Half in the grave, anyway." And then he plunged the sword down into Grubsuckle's chest.  
***** 


End file.
